Need another strategy...

Well, the oddness out of my kiln continues. The results of the second pot melt firing were no better than the first.  There were still glass strings connecting the pot with the fused disk below even after doubling the melt time.  Here's a shot of the disk after the second firing so you can see the cool pattern that results from the melt pot:

This disk I'm going to fire one more time at full fuse temperature to allow the three pokey bits on top to lay back down into the glass surface and to allow the disk to get to a more even thickness and roundness.  Then, the next part of the fun begins.  I have a texture plate with a swirl design embedded into the surface.  When I lay the fused disk over it and do a slump firing, it will embed the texture into the bottom of the glass.  Then I will slump it again into a wavy bowl mold to create the bowl shape.  Personally, I have to admit that I don't get how the texture will stay in the glass as it slumps into the bowl shape, but I've seen quite a lot of great results of people putting textures into bowl and plate blanks, then slumping them into shape so I'll just take it on faith that it works.

The new strategy for the next pot melt will be to keep the doubled melt time, but increase the temperature of the melt from 1600 to 1650 degrees.  Hopefully, the extra heat will create a better separation between the pot and disk.  If that doesn't work, I'll try increasing the temperature yet again in the next firing until I can get a clean disk.