Bubble Bandit: Dishwasher, Laundry Detergent, All-Fabric Bleach

[frigilux]

The Bubble Bandit products arrived yesterday and gave all three a try this morning.

Dishwasher Detergent: Very disappointed! Pieces shown are all All-Clad. 4-qt. saucepan and lid used to make long-grain rice. The large, deep sauté pan browned hamburger and onions for a hotdish.

Instructions say to put 2-tablespoons (2-tablespoon plastic scoop included) in the main wash cup. Add 1 tablespoon (1/2 scoop) in first wash compartment for heavily soiled loads. I put 3/4 of the scoop in the main wash cup and and the rest in the 1st wash cup.

Used the 1-hour cycle as I always do. Have softened water.

Other things in the load—dishes, glasses, silverware, stainless steel cake pan used to bake hotdish came out fine, but the All-Clad pieces did not. The saucepan has red rust marks inside and the starch lines on the outside of the pan from pouring the contents into a storage container weren’t budged a bit.

I’ve never had these poor results using Member’s Mark pacs or Cascade Platinum pacs.

Bob, I know you pack your dishwasher full, don’t pre-rinse and never pre-scrub pans. Do you have problems with the cleaning ability of Bubble Bandit on pots/pans?

Did a huge load of white towels with 2 tablespoons laundry powder and 2 tablespoons all-fabric bleach. Didn’t notice any problems with cleaning.

Will give Bubble Bandit dishwasher detergent a few more tries. If performance doesn’t improve, it’ s back to pods/pacs for me.

Photo is upside down!

 

[Marky_Mark]

I haven't tried Bubble Bandit, but I have been using an equivalent product in Europe, Finish Professional powder, which is the same as Cascade Fryer Boil Out.  It contains 30% phosphate (which is about 9% phosphorus) and chlorine bleach.  The biggest problem I have found with this "traditional" style powder is that it struggles to shift starchy residues from rice or pasta.  Its performance on protein-based soils is mixed.  Really, you need enzymes to remove these things.  It will work well on other soils and tea/coffee stains.

 

The main benefit is only seen by those who have hard water.  The phosphate content is great at preventing calcium build up in the machine and on the items being washed and glasses should emerge shiner and clearer for those who have hard water.  The phosphate also helps with cleaning and helps to avoid redeposit.  But if you have soft water (as you and I do, thanks to a water softener) then I think you will get better results from a good detergent like Cascade Platinum etc.

 

[jamiel]

well put--starch needs the amylase to be removed.

 

[circlew]

My mom always used a Tuffy or Dobie scouring pad on pans used for spaghetti or macaroni before putting them in dishwasher.

 

[appnut]

Eugene, I've had very few results that disappointed me.  But then again, I RARELY use my 1-hour cycle.  My need for BB was due to coffee & tea stains not being removed in my coffee mugs.  For the past 5+ years and that's with using Cascade Platinum, Cascade Complete in pre-wash, Pots & Pans and either High-Temp wash or Sani-Rinse.  For the past 2+ years, I've added Finish Detergent Booster or Lemi-Shine Detergent booster and tea/coffee stains still wouldn't budge.  But I had residue-free pots & pans.  And also destroyed the finish/colors on some mugs.  And I have very hard water apparently.  Mark's assessment about enzymes vs. phosphates is quite accurate.  Earlier tis week I'd baked some chicken thighs in a pyrex dish.  The above cycle/option, it came out spotless and no residue.  Last night I made risotto in my Instant Pot and left the remnants and such overnight.  Ran the dishwasher as stated above this morning.  All the food soils came out, but some residue remains.  It's unfortunate, but with my hard water I can have results for one or the other, but not combined.  Maybe KitchenAid will re-introduce models with built-in water softener.  Until then , I can't have it both ways.  

 

[frigilux]

Thanks for the information, guys!

Bob- Thanks for responding. I should have taken a photo of each pan separately, as the one above doesn’t show the extent of the problem well. The underside of the saucepan’s cover shows it best. Since I already have softened water and will continue to use the 1-hr. cycle—which has always provided good results—I’m going back to Member’s Mark pacs. I have about 350 of them, so I’m good-to-go, lol.

Several here have commented over the years that one of the reasons vintage dishwashers cleaned effectively with 30-60 minute cycles was because the detergents back then contained phosphates; that today’s enzyme cocktail-based detergents required longer wash periods to do their work. I decided to give BB—which claims to have natural phosphates—a try since I use what is by today’s standards a short cycle similar to those on vintage dishwashers.

Have a friend with a dishwasher but no water softener, so I’m going to give her the bag of BB. It will probably improve results for her and gradually get rid of hard water deposits in her machine.

Bubble Bandit Laundry Detergent & All-Fabric Bleach Booster: Did a maximum capacity load of bath linens mixed with some kitchen whites and a couple of around-the-house shorts and shirts. There were only a few stains on the kitchen whites and some blood on a couple of hand towels from shaving mishaps. Used 2 scoops of detergent (which is 4, not 2 tablespoons, as stated in original post) along with 1 scoop (2 tablespoons) of booster. Everything emerged clean.

Looking forward to giving the detergent/booster combo a tougher test with more heavily-stained kitchen whites some time next week.

 

[tomturbomatic]

It's sad when a hoped for item disappoints; at least it was not a people. Thank you for the report.

 

[appnut]

Time for an update

Eugene, I know you won't do this with your dishwasher, but I put a couple of pans of mine in the dishwasher that looked pretty bad with starchy splotches and water marks appearance that had rice and pasta cooked in it, and my Instant Pot insert.  I used Pots & Pans with high-temp wash and everything was spotless.  

 

[qsd-dan]

In modern dishwashers, Bubble Bandit and Cascade Fryer Boil Out are generally best used in the pre wash cycle followed by using a modern detergent in the main wash.

Make sure there's a rinse cycle between pre-wash and main wash cycles to prevent the destruction of enzymes when using both bleach and enzyme based detergents or use the enzyme detergent in the pre wash cycle first with a cold to luke-warm fill.

 

[frigilux]

Bob- Thanks for the update. Your results with Bubble Bandit in hard water make it fairly obvious that the 1-hr cycle is not long enough to allow the detergent to do its best work. My bag of BB has been passed on to a friend, but don’t know if she’s used it yet.

Dan- Too late for me to try the BB + pac hybrid, but sounds like an interesting idea.

Have to say I'm more impressed with the BB laundry detergent + all-fabric bleach/booster combo, especially in hot water. Will have to try the detergent alone at some point to see how it does. BB + booster cleans about as well as Tide Ultra Stain Release does on its own from what I've seen so far. It's cheaper to use Tide USR compared to BB + booster, but have to admit it's fun using powders for some loads.

Next experiment: Tide Ultra Stain Release or Heavy Duty 10X in conjunction with Bubble Bandit All-Fabric Bleach Booster. Will either of those combinations rival the use of detergent plus liquid chlorine bleach (heretofore the gold standard for stain removal)?

Tide Heavy Duty 10X: Didn't get a Culligan tank change this week so water is beginning to get hard. Trying to save the 40 gallons of soft water still in the water heater for showers and dishwasher, so washed a BobLoad of bath linens, a few kitchen whites (several piece heavily stained) and a couple of short sleeve shirts/shorts in cold water and the Normal cycle with its spray rinses. Given those far-from-ideal parameters, have to say the Tide (filled to line 4 in cap; for large loads) didn't do too badly. Pasta sauce stains were not removed, but they were lightened quite a bit. Culligan is scheduled to be here Tuesday morning, thank God.[this post was last edited: 5/23/2020-09:49]

 

[tomturbomatic]

Didn't you say that the BB detergent was phosphated? Why not use that with some Tide in your marginally softened water? Phosphate does so much more than just tie up the calcium-magnesium salts in hard water. It really helps the cleaning and probably would have helped on the stains.

RE Reply #7 with Starchy film. I finally threw in the towel and bought a couple of no-stick pans to use for rice, potatoes and pasta.

 

[frigilux]

I thought about using Bubble Bandit + booster this morning, but having chosen to wash a huge, primarily white load in cold water using spray rinses, decided to go with Tide 10X as my best bet. CR noted in their tests that Tide USR and 10X did well in their separate hard water test, as compared to Persil Proclean + Stain Fighter, whose cleaning power was diminished in hard water.

Monday, I wash another BobLoad of bed linens, kitchen whites, and some around-the-house clothes (short sleeve buttoned shirts and shorts). Will probably use cold water and the Normal cycle again. May try BB + Booster or, as you suggested, some of each.

I can feel the water getting harder in the cold line, so am doing everything I can to carefully parse out the still-soft water in the water heater. And, of course, every gallon of hot water used is replaced by a gallon of hard water.

In fact, just as an experiment, am going to run a maximum capacity dishwasher load in warm water in a couple of hours, just to see if items emerge clean using a Member's Mark pac. Since the Whirlpool is portable, water temp can be adjusted at the tap.

I have three nonstick frying pans of various sizes, but normally get great results with starch lines from pasta & rice in my All-Clad pans using the Member's Mark pacs.

 

[frigilux]

Update: Just washed an at-capacity load in the dishwasher with warm water. Placed the faucet exactly at the midpoint between hot and cold water, added a Member’s Mark Ultimate Clean pac, chose the 1-hr cycle and hoped for the best. Did not run water to purge hot water pipe. Water draining after final rinse was about 90 degrees.

Opened the door to no steam whatsoever and decided to hand dry the load—primarily because I couldn’t wait to see how things turned out. Much to my surprise...everything was clean. Even the three plastic Ziploc containers that had various portioned casseroles in them were grease-free.

Cooked off 8 burgers—four in an All-Clad high-sided sauté pan and four in a nonstick frying pan. I’d run a wet paper towel over the interior of the All-Clad prior to putting it in the machine, but it was by no means clean. It emerged gleaming.

This is certainly not something I plan to do regularly, but just may continue to do it between now and Tuesday, when the Culligan tank finally gets exchanged. Trying to parse out the still-soft water in the water heater for showers.

At any rate, I guess these newly reformulated pacs from Sam’s Club do deserve their top-rated status at CR.

 

[tomturbomatic]

The two non-stick pans I bought for starchy things are All-Clad. I always wash them by hand since there have been reports in the past about the non-stick coating failing if put in the dishwasher. Nothing sticks so there is no cleanup problem with them.

 

[ozzie908]

#appnut

OK I have to ask how come most of your dishwashers do not have a water softener built in?

I cannot think of a single model in the UK that doesn't have one, The only one I can recall is a Candy back in the 80's but since then they all have them.

You can turn them off if you have naturally soft water to a whole house softener but they are rare I have a Miele dishwasher that you can adjust the setting on its set about midway and everything is clean in fact the only thing it often fails on is a Crueset casserole dish I tend to use the sensor setting and it gets a finish tab in the main wash occasionally I throw in a sanitiser tablet in the prewash if the plastic boxes etc are tinged with tomato.

Admittedly it takes a while to wash as it only has a cold water connection but as we use it every night and sometimes during the day as well am never in a rush for it to do its work...

Austin[this post was last edited: 5/24/2020-07:56]

 

[mark_wpduet]

Rinse cycle AFTER prewash?

OK, so to chime in here.

To get a little chlorine I add a splash of bleach before starting the dishwasher. There's that first fill, then drain...then fill for wash, then I think 2 rinses after the main wash. I've never had an issue of bleach degrading finish powerball performance. I think because of the fact that I'm already only using a little bleach to begin with, which gets diluted with the fill.....so once that's drained, there's hardly any left. But a little bleach goes a LONG way. I can tell a major difference if I don't use the bleach.

Oh, I don't do the quick wash. Why? I tried it once on my Maytag and it's NOT even an hour! Results were horrible. I think it only ran 30 minutes. But for whatever reason, my Maytag doesn't run for what I feel like is a really long time anyway. Maybe 90 min's? (ish) on normal high temp tough scrub. The only cycle that gets way out of hand with the time is the Jetclean steam cycle, which I think is over 3 hours and maybe close to 4 and uses a TON of water.

 

[DADoES]

 
Austin, dishwashers with water softeners are not common on the US market.  European-sourced brands (Miele, Bosch, maybe Asko) may have them on some higher-end models.  F&P has DDs both with and without.  KA had an equipped model, don't know if it's still available.

The typical consumer doesn't consider that a dishwasher can have a built-in softener, and those that don't have a whole-house softener have no clue how they work.  A typical comment on a discussion board about "adding salt to my dishwasher" from someone who has a unit with a softener invariably brings questions from people thinking that simply adding table salt along with the detergent will result in softened water in their non-softener machines.

 

[ozzie908]

Oh I see

Thank you for explaining that to me

 

[eronie]

You cannot regenerate any softener with HOT water! US machines are hot fill!
European machines are cold fill!