BarbaraD-- When you use a tool on glass, in this case a brass press, the tool will suck some of the heat out of the glass. You need to reheat the glass so it's evenly heated, giving extra attention to those parts of the glass that are thinner as they lose heat faster, and making sure you've got a nice deep heat in the thicker parts, as well. You can take your time doing this. Your lentils probably cracked because they weren't even heated, and/or they were too large to survive the vermiculite and just cooled too fast for their size.
It sounds like you have a kiln-- is there a reason you're not using it to garage your beads as you're making them, then running an annealing cycle?
Mimi
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