Cascade Complete Actionpacs horrible!!

[liamy1]

These

However are my sworn by trusty favourites - used them for years ever since they launched. Always have them in my cupboard.

https://img.tesco.com/Groceries/pi/293/5011417568293/IDShot_540x540.jpg

 

[mark_wpduet]

Rinsing

My dishwasher will do two rinses if I use the longest cycle. I mean, you would think the soil sensor would pick up any soap residue in the water and automatically rinse until it's gone......but I guess soil sensors don't work on soap, only soil. I wonder if using sani-rinse would have helped...but I'm thinking those particular packs are just too strong....I don't pre-rinse anything. That Fairy looks identical to action pacs. It has to be made by P&G

 

[mark_wpduet]

Oh I forgot to add

I received a sample a while ago for Finish Quantum.......The thing I did not like about the quantum was the amount of foam in the dishwasher while running made the dishwasher sound like it was struggling..and this is with hard water! This didn't happen with the actionpac or the regular Finish powerball. But the quantum, even with the excess foaming, rinsed clean and dishes were sparkling and no smells at the end....just clean.. but I felt like it was damaging the dishwasher using them.

 

[thomasortega]

AS Stu Mundell would say.... Whooooooaaaaaaaa

So that's not only me that used Finish my whole life and then tried the Finish Quantum and had suds issues.

 

[askolover]

Same here...sticking with chlorinated powder.  It doesn't foam.

 

[rolls_rapide]

Finish Powder Discontinued?

The powder variant seems to have disappeared off the Finish website. Only the bio-gels and tablet detergents are available.

Mind you, the last time I used the powder, it coated the machine and the load in a fine, white powder. Maybe that's the idea - make a decent product awful, then folk'll not buy it...

https://www.finish.co.uk/products/

 

[liamy1]

That Fairy looks identical to action pacs. It has to be made

"That Fairy looks identical to action pacs. It has to be made by P&G"

They certainly are. P&G's dish offering over here are all under the Fairy Brand - there is also a laundry detergent range and a fabric softener range AND a stain remover range under the Fairy brand (there also used to be a bath soap bar and household soap bar range too - but they're long gone) P&G seem to like this brand lol.

Anyway keeping on point, our Fairy dish products look identical to Dawn/Cascade products.

You'd think a soap sensor on machines to determine rinsing would be standard, but apparently no. My washing machine has it, they refer to it as a "turbidity sensor" manual says it assesses the clarity of the water from soap and will adjust rinses accordingly.

 

[liamy1]

@Rolls

Yes the finish powder has gone (at least here in U.K.) I think (but could be wrong) you can still get the 10kg professional boxes of finish powder from Costco and Makro etc.

But saying that, the new Gel in the squeezy bottles that replaced the liquid is actually very good - have used a bottle or 2 and it's not really thick and gelatinous like the laundry gels.

 

[rolls_rapide]

@ liamy1:

When I tried that blue-green bio-gel previously (when it was supplied in the yellow traditional bottle), it removed most of the soil, but it didn't shift tea stains from cups. A complaint was issued to Reckitt-Benkiser, and I was told to use the tablets.

I still have a small amount of the old discontinued, white chlorine-based gel. It whisks the stains away in one blast.

 

[jerrod6]

Must be the water

If I use regular Finish Red ball my dishwasher will rinse three times due to the suds it creates. Instead, I was using Finish Quantum tabs which worked great. Two months ago when I needed Dw detergent I bought the new version of Finish Quantum sold in the black package. In this new version, the shape and size of the tabs are different; now they are flatter and longer. Two weeks ago, while nearing the end of the package I noticed that the DW was extending the time of the first rinse. It is usually 7 minutes long, but for every run with this Quantum, it was extending the rinse to 13 to minutes.

After running out of detergent I found an old box of Cascade powder and began using it. No more 14 minute first rinses. It is back to 7 minutes. I hope I can find a box of Finish powder because I like it a bit better than Cascade.

I can't figure this out because usually if there is excess suds in the first rinse, a second rinse will be added giving 3 rinses, but this time it is extending the rinse as if there is more dirt, instead of changing the water and rinsing 3 times.

 

[launderess]

Finish tablets

Going back to when they were first introduced as "Electrasol Power Ball" always had an issue with froth.

Would split tablet in half using one part per main wash and nothing in pre-wash, yet still could hear the dw struggling for all the froth.

Finally began taking out the red power ball and saving it for rinse cycles and turning off/down the built in rinse aid dispenser.

Once completed that stash moved onto Cascade Complete and never looked back.

That is until got a stash of Finish "powertabs" or whatever for free. They sit unused as have a good enough stash of Cascade Complete am working through.

 

[mark_wpduet]

Well

Just used Powerball and no overwhelming smell while the dishwasher was running and when opened, nothing but the smell of clean dishes......no perfume.

I guess it is different water conditions for people. I should specify the type of Powerball I'm using is Powerball Max in 1. Each tablet is wrapped and on the packaging, it says "no need to unwrap"

How weird quantum doesn't foam for you and Powerball does - and for me it's the opposite.

 

[retro-man]

I just came across a stash of the Finish dishwasher tabs in my MIL house and brought them home. No original container. These appear to be wrapped in a silver foil. I have been unwrapping them prior to use in the dishwasher. Do you not need to unwrap these? It seems a pain to be opening these. I also found some other ones with 3 colors in a plastic type covering. Those I have used as they are in the dispenser and it is gone upon the cycle completing. Neither so far seem to be making a lot of foam in either of my dishwashers.

Jon

 

[henene4]

If the foil is opaque you probably have to unwrap them.
Easy test is to just toss one in a glass of water without unwrapping.

Different detergents have different make ups that can produce wildly varying results even in the same water and machine.
Some use more enzymes, some more chlorine bleach, some more tensides.
Some are designed to get rinsed away less easy so that more of their shining and drying agents make it to the final rinse.

We always just used a cheap one purpose detergent based on mostly oxygen bleach and a rinse aid and - as we are EU here - our water softener in the machine was always well fed.

We barely washed any dried burnt on starchy stuff, so the lack of enzymes didn't make a difference to us. However, all the coffee cups stayed white no matter how long they were left to dry.
We also had all white porcelain, so no fadeibg of decor.

 

[mark_wpduet]

YES~!

Unwrap them if they are wrapped in foil then put tab in dishwasher. A few years ago they changed to the clear plastic wrapped tablet where you don't have to unwrap it.

 

[jamiel]

I bought some cheap private label powderpacks and am not finding them to be very good.

 

[superocd]

I have made it a policy to never buy any dishwasher or laundry detergent pacs. I've heard that it is bad news for the pump of the machine. It's also usually cheaper just to buy the powder or liquid (I use powder Cascade). I'd love to get my hands on institutional-grade detergent just to see if I could throw some dishes in my ca. 2014 Whirlpool Gold DW without having to scrape and rinse.

I've always scraped and rinsed anyway and would do it even if I had a Hobart KitchenAid or a true commercial DW with lots of hot water, a forceful spray and steam hot enough to cause a 3rd degree burn, lol, but I just find it funny that people are encouraged to let the machine's turbidity sensors do the work because I've tried that once as an experiment and was not impressed at all, even though I used my usual Cascade powder (which is supposedly the best for consumer detergents) and started that load with a clean filter (which I rotate, I ordered an extra cartridge for my machine -- one is always washed while the clean one is installed in place).

Even just a small speck here and there is unacceptable to me, so I scrape and rinse to avoid disappointment (and handwash any wares with stubborn messes, like baked on cheese of a casserole dish, before they go in). I wonder if an institutional/commercial grade detergent would improve the wash performance of a load that was never scraped or rinsed.

 

[launderess]

"I wonder if an institutional/commercial grade detergent would improve the wash performance of a load that was never scraped or rinsed."

Well it wouldn't would it? I mean commercial/institutional dishwashers largely see dishware that is already well scrapped and or rinsed before going into machine. Dishwashers basically act to sanitize while getting rid of trace foods, greases and so forth.

Some of the newer flight dishwashers have a pre-rinse section that does away with doing all that scrapping and rinsing by hand.

Unlike automatic dishwasher detergents for residential use enzymes are largely absent from institutional/commercial versions. What you do find there are high amounts of chlorine bleach and strong base substances (washing soda, sodium metasilicate, maybe phosphates (TSP or STPP), and surfactants among other chemicals. Idea is to emulsify fat/oils via saponification and destroy protein substances.

Commercial dishwashing is much like commercial laundries; cycles are short so there isn't much time for mucking about with enzymes. Instead both largely rely upon what they always have; chemical action, pH and high to very temperatures.

 

[mark_wpduet]

superocd

I understand scraping...That I do. But rinsing all dishes before putting them in? No way. It needs food particles for the enzyme detergent to work and actually makes the dishwasher work better. The ONLY thing I rinse off is EGG.... There's just something about egg that the dishwasher or detergent (no matter how hot or long of a wash), there's just this weird smell left EVERYWHERE with anything EGG. That's why I rinse egg off.

I've used the institutional Cascade and I really liked it. You can still get it I believe but it's called Fryer boil out. It's just like the dishwasher detergent of the 80s and 90s with phosphates (unless something's changed). I haven't looked it up in a while.

 

[liamy1]

Rinsing

advice here is not to rinse at all, as Mark says, scrape yes, rinse never - negates any efficiency saving of having a dishwasher.

Out of interest superocd - can you not get spotless results with any mass market available (not commercial/professional) detergent at all?

Have never rinsed and always get spotless results with either Fairy (Cascade) or Finish.