Am revisiting this discussion with some other thoughts.

Some people prefer to shorten schedules on automated processors, using
vacuum/pressure, no heat during processing, using xylene substitutes, or
even xylene, etc, etc. while others used long schedules that work well. 

One source of crispy tissues can be:

What is the temperature of your embedding paraffin, is it way above the
melting point of the paraffin?? 

If you infiltrate at 60C, then the embedding paraffin should be the same. 

Also, what are the settings for embedding center surfaces?  Where you store
tissue cassettes during embedding?  External heated surface?  If these are
excessively high, this could be cooking your tissues further, creating
crispy crunchy sections.  Had this happen years ago, and I shudder to think
what I did to the tissues in a clinicl lab.

It may not be all processing problems.  
Gayle Callis
MT,HT,HTL(ASCP)
Histopathology Supervisor
Veterinary Molecular Biology - Marsh Lab
Montana State University - Bozeman
19th and Lincoln St
Bozeman MT 59717-3610

406 994-6367
406 994-4303 (FAX)