Apparently pre-rinsing confuses the dishwasher or something. Not doing it leaves me with residue all over the other dishes though 🤷
It has a purpose when cleaning by hand
Residue is a sign of too much soap in the dishwasher. Try reducing the amount of soap. Also, it massively helps to put a little bit inside the chamber and not just the soap compartment. The dishwasher has two washes, pre-wash and main wash, and without soap, pre-wash will be almost useless. With soap, it will drastically reduce the necessary amount of soap in the main wash, meaning no more residue for you.
You mean detergent right?
Apologies for the youtube link but this guy fits in nicely with the lemmy crowd and made a 40min video about optimal use of dishwashers and detergent. He does promote a specific powder detergent… but its from a good company 👈👈😎 and backed with science.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DAX2_mPr9W8&pp=ygUhdGVjaG5vbG9neSBjb25uZWN0aW9ucyBkaXNod2FzaGVy
“This guy”!? How dare you disrespect Alec like that! :P
If you’re nerdy enough to be on Lemmy, you’re likely nerdy enough to already be a fan of Technology Connections; just sayin’.
Someone else posted a video that covered this. Some dishwashers (not mine) have a pre-wash spot for putting the soap. In the video, the guy had his spot actually on top of the soap door, so it would be measured but falls straight in with the dishes when you close the door for the pre-wash. He said in the video to just add a tablespoon of dishwashing powder on the door or in the bottom if yours doesn’t have a prewash spot.
I have learnt a lot from that video and all the comments here!
I, uh, have to hand wash all of mine so
Some things you can just put in, some things need a long soak and a steel wool scrub.
Fond on stainless? Baked on protein? Ancient debris? You might need to do it manually.
I don’t know, man, just put it through and if it doesn’t come off, LEARN what you can and can’t like a normal human being, jesus.
A good way to start, if you’re an infant, is to soak all your dishes for like 6-12 hours, and inspect to see what comes off easily and what doesn’t.
All this talk about soaking or not soaking is like mormon young adults trying to bend the walls that skydaddy built.
I have an old (must be 20yo) budget bench dishwasher and never have any issue with anything not being clean. Never done pre-wash and often overpack it.
People who saw the TC video reading this post:
Gotta run that water till its hot, and use the powder, brother.
Again with this America-centric view
Oh you (rest of the world), with your 220vac everywhere and your “yeah electricity can heat that up” attitude.
I think the 220vac is just Europe, isn’t it?
Ah yes, Dishwashers and their operation. The quintessential americana. Surely no one else in the world has dishwashers but America.
I never pre-rinse and I never have any problems. Not using pods and adding soap to the pre-wash cup as per the manufacturer instructions made the real difference.
Using regular dish soap for this will end up in a disaster.
Edit: Lol, what kind of idiot downvoted this. Go ahead, use regular dish soap in a dish washer, and PLEASE report back. XD
I can report back since my ex did it once. Suds came out of the dishwasher while it was running, otherwise no big deal. Worked fine afterwards, didn’t develop any leaks or anything.
She also used liquid hand soap for laundry once, smelled a bit funny and might not have gotten as clean as otherwise, but otherwise nothing bad happened
That’s not a typical reaction. Either there was only a non existent amount of dish soap or the thing wasn’t left running long enough for it to be really bad.
It almost always results in suds being EVERYWHERE and the same thing happening over and over again if the dish washer isn’t cleaned properly afterwards.
I overfilled with regular dishwasher detergent once and triggered the overflow sensor. The dishwasher drained itself correctly, but bubbles in the little tube kept the float locked in the overflow position until they all popped, hours later. The soap residue left in the sensor bubbled up for several cycles afterward, repeating the problem. You can, theoretically, unscrew it from its mount and tip it forward to make the bubbles pop faster but that sounded like a recipe for disaster.
I cannot imagine what dumping regular-ass dishsoap would do to my dishwasher, but based on the above I’d probably just put a round in it and look for a new one.
Detergent = soap but you’re right, regular dish soap does not belong in the dishwasher and will result in a huge mess.
If you haven’t cleaned your filter recently I will recommend you double check it. It’s probably not it, but it’s an easy thing to check
As someone who never reads manuals. This.
That dishwasher isn’t designed to be self-cleaning – it needs help. Clean the filter regularly. Maybe every other load depending on how you pre-wash.
Same vibe for a lint filter in your washing machine. I think many people check the dryer lint trap, but the washer also has one. And the dryer vent hose will collect lint.
There are air filters in your furnace, probably, that need to be checked too, not just the intakes in a few rooms; and the AC drain line needs to be cleaned occasionally or it will back up and make a water mess.
There are just a thousand maintenance tasks that we are presumably supposed to just know, but no one told us, and can become serious problems when they are ignored. As the world becomes more complicated, there are only more of these.
“It’s probably not it”? After 30 years of dishwater experience I am convinced that it’s always the filter.
Ok fair, it’s almost certainly a factor here, but may not be the only cause
Yeah right like if my dishes aren’t coming out right that’s the first place I look.
It’s pretty simple, really…if it’s draining too slow and the dishwasher doesn’t realize it, it’s gonna spray dirty water far later than it should band.
Where my washer seems to struggle is shit that dries on real good. Parfait is probably the worst. Which is funny, because e’rybody loves parfait.
My dishwasher literally doesn’t have a pre-rinse cycle, the first wash is the main one with the powder, so I get to avoid this whole conundrum! By which I mean, I do quickly wash them by hand if there’s any obvious gunk, and no one would realistically tell me not to.
To those curious, it’s this countertop one: https://www.midea.co.il/product/mdwmt030sw-w-il (couldn’t find a product page in any other language)
The compartment for the detergent has no lid, so the powder drops as soon as you close it.
It also does not have anywhere to put rinse aid, but a bottle of some was included when I bought it new. Great attention to details.
By which I mean, I do quickly wash them by hand if there’s any obvious gunk, and no one would realistically tell me not to.
The whole point of this topic is that you’re not supposed to have to do that 😅
I know, but for my dishwasher specifically, you kinda do :D
Pre-rinsing is the hill I’m willing to die on.
If I don’t pre-rinse, no matter how clean my filter is, I end up with little bumps of gunk on all my plates and bowls. You can’t see them, but you sure as shit can feel them. There’s no way I will ever stop pre-rinsing
Look up the turbidity sensor
My dispenser door is permanently jammed Open,so i had to reluctantly Switch to pods for the Timed Release. Powder is better imo.
Don’t bother. Delayed release is bullshit. Just dumping powder in there should get the same result.
Watch the video someone else posted in this thread. It briefly touches on timed release pods. They tested and the whole thing disolves at once, within seconds.
Obligatory Technology Connections video insert
To the top. Was looking for this linkeroo
You made it before me sir!
I tried the powder thing. Couldn’t get the hang of it. Back to pods and I’m more than satisfied. I trust Alex implicitly, it’s clearly an “operator error,” but that’s where I’m at.
I used powder for years and it worked okay. However I was always cleaning my filter and the inside of my dishwasher seemed a bit grungy. On a whim I decided to try one of the most expensive pods. The difference was night and day. My dishwasher looks much better, and now when I clean the filter there’s barely any gunk. Some of the pods definitely have more effective product (enzymes?) that the powder doesn’t have.
Were you using the expensive powder?
I was using Cascade Complete powder.
I’d be curious to know how you’re washing in a way that makes you feel pods are better.
I used to be a pod person (ha), but after alwx’s video, I experimented and found that by adding powder to the door (along with the actual soap part, obv) and running the hot tap before starting the load makes them come out great (most of the time - oatmeal is my nemesis).
The hot water was the big thing for me. I don’t see a noticeable performance difference between the pods and the powder, but the pods are easier with a small enough cost difference over time that it might as well be zero.
But the hot water is clutch.
I did the usage cost at my house, The powder was less than half the cost for what I use and my local prices.
But half of what? Half of cheap is still cheap.
Half of cheap is cheaper. Shit compounds when you have a handful of these savings.
Bingo, I buy dry goods in bulk. Soap, rice, flour… cost so little to produce even buying the smaller bulk packages can save a significant portion of your grocery bill. The only stuff I buy from the grocer is perishables and frozen.
A $7 box of pancake mix costs about $1 to make from bulk ingredients.
A 1.30 box of rice-a-roni costs a little over 0.50 cents to make.
Mac and cheese, same deal,
If you can stash a few large bags, or split the cost with your neibors/fam you can cut out a huge chunk of your food cost, end up with stuff that’s healthier and tastier and not locked in to 1 of 4 flavors.
Making pancakes looks like this:
get out a spoon, any small/medium spoon. n heaping spoonfulls of flour, n-2 heaping spoonfulls of sugar, a pinch of salt, 2 if you’re making a more than a few cups. 1 level spoon of baking powder. (2 if you’re feeding an army) Add water and stir until it comes off the spoon in ribbons. Too much water? add a level spoon of flour and mix until it comes off in ribbons.
For waffles, add some oil, another spoon of baking powder, a few drops of vanilla extract.
rice-a-roni is just rice and spaghetti, lightly browned in oil the boiled off with bullion, maybe some light veggies.
50% is 50% it scales linerally.
82 Cascade pouches at bulk cost me $30 75 oz of Cascade powder costs me $6
that’s $0.09 per wash for powder and $0.37 cents per wash for pouches.
I don’t really consider $30 to be cheap… and it turns out it’s 1/3 as much not 1/2
How often do you use your dishwasher?
I use mine about 2-3 times a week, so if we go with 3 that’s saving like 40 bucks a year, assuming perfect measurements and no spilling of the powder. That’s not enough of a difference to fret over.
It was purely me not getting the hang of the amount of powder. I also have a lot of plasticware (kids), and so it amplified the residual issue.
The problem is that I have zero issues with pods. I out in pod, turn on, close door, and that’s that. It’s the lack of problems, and the fact that powder requires some fine tuning, that had me lose interest in it.
And I basically scrape food matter off plates and load them in. Only time I ever rince is when we have lots of tiny food matters on plates and it’ll be a pain in the ass to scrape each individually into the garbage, where a jet of hot water will blast them into the strainer ezpz.
So yeah, I’m running the dishwasher daily, and for me I need the path of least resistance.
Skill issue.
Most dishwashers have a pre-rinse program, adds ~5min to the duration. It does get rid of lime residue.
I was ready to riot if I didn’t see TC in the comments.
I was shocked that I had the opportunity to post it, to be honest.
It’s funny cause i was just talking about this video the other day with someone who didn’t know you have to run the tap hot before starting the machine. It’s just such a good video.
That depends on how far from your machine your hot water heater is, and if your machine compensates for water temp with a heating element or discharging cold water until the temp increases but as a general rule: yeeuh
If you run the tap hot first you get hot water in the pre-wash cycle. A lot of machines don’t use the heating coil for the pre-wash.
It also only matters when your dishwasher is hooked up to warm water in the first place. (In Germany) I’ve only ever seen them connected to cold water.
Even if yours has a heating element it’s a good idea to preheat the water. This is covered in the TC video
I wonder if this could be done by the dishwasher with a temp sensor and program at the start of each load (run until hot, drain, start wash). i assume it would hurt their water efficiency claims to dump a bunch of water down the drain at the start of the wash though
US dishwashers often do have a wimpy heating element. It gets used if you have a setting for extra hot water or a sani-rinse cycle. It wouldn’t be a big deal to have the dish washer heat it’s own water, but it would require either running a 220V circuit to the machine to make it practical or put up with a very long wash cycle.
Though frankly, washing in cold water is fine as long as you scrub well enough. But you do need to do the rinsing in very hot water to finish the job.
Edit to add - I didn’t explain the extra heating to the water well enough. The wimpy heating element doubles to do extra heating of the water and is used for the drying cycle.
It doesn’t have to, just put a heatig element in it. Most dishwasher I’ve seen only hook up to cold water, so running the tap is not going to do anything.
That was fantastic, thanks!
Some of the key things were to put separate powder in for the pre-wash (mine doesn’t have a separate pre-wash section as far as I can tell), and to not put so much detergent in. We have soft water, and apparently that means if you fill the thing up (or use a tablet/pod) then you might be using too much detergent which means it might not all come off in the final rinsing stage.
mine doesn’t have a separate pre-wash section as far as I can tell
Then you can just dump the pre-wash detergent directly in.
Yeah I got that from the video, just throw it in since it’s the first cycle anyway.
