Dishwasher detergents: poor performance

[rolls_rapide]

Has anyone else experienced tablets or P&G's 'pouches' creating excess foam in their machine?

I have a Bosch that alternates the spray between the baskets, and with certain brands of detergent, the machine sounds extremely lethargic, almost as though the spray arms are barely turning.

On the occasions that I have opened the door to check, there is usually a head of foam in the sump. However, I dare not do this, as the machine develops a suds-lock condition, and will not spray from either arm.

Furthermore, I noticed that the modern tablets/pouches were giving poor performance on stainless steel pots & pans; the steel was stained a dull colour. Steel teapots were discoloured a rainbow colour inside. Teaspoons were tarnished with tannins from tea.

Plastic chopping boards had severe carrot and tomato stains.

None of the modern powders or tablets had any effect on these items. 'Superwash' had no effect, neither did increasing the detergent dose. In fact, the staining had built up over a period of several months, despite intensive washing.

So I tried Finish Liquid with the chlorine formulation. The first wash intensive wash improved the steel pots. Chopping boards looked whiter.

The second wash brought them back to their original shining condition. Teapots and teaspoons are now shining, too. Chopping boards have barely any staining now.

The machine sounded free of suds too, and much more powerful.

Has anyone else experienced poor performance with modern oxygen bleach/enzyme dishwasher detergents?

 

[aquarius1984]

I wont touch Fairy dishwashing pouches with a bargepole. Too pricey for something I could just as safely toss into the bath and soak myself in.

I am between Finish Liquid and Finish powder as they are undoubtedly the best detergents in the UK.

I use the liquid on those loads with Tomato and Carrot stains and the powder on all other loads, even tea and coffee.

Neither froth up and both do excellent jobs on any cycle I choose bar the extra quick wash.
Have 2 quick cycles, 1 hr 25 and a 25 min extra qucik one.

Got into using Tesco Naturally Rinse aid which is cheap, and does a great job.
Have the dispenser set at the lowest position and yet there is no streaks and all is dry when the machine finishes.

Rob

 

[autowasherfreak]

To Many Suds

My roommates mother gave me a box of the Electrasol tabs, when I used them for the first time, I noticed my dishwasher was sounding a little strange. I opened the door and it had at least 1 or 2 inches suds. I finshed using them, and went back to powder detergent. I buy the Dollar General brand of dishwasher detergent, and it does just as good as the name brands that I have used. It's only $2.50 a box, and I buy two boxes at a time, and dump them both into a bucket that originally had Sam's dishwasher detergent in it. Two boxes will usually last me about three months or longer.

 

[passatdoc]

I have a Bosch, live in Southern California with very hard water, and do not have a water softener. There is a sticker inside the door recommending the use of Electrasol tabs and Jet Dry (the former is now sold as "Finish").

Whether the manufacturer was paid off by these brands to market their product, I don't know. But I used Electrasol tabs and JetDry and have been having great results for seven years now. Occasionally I have purchased the 3-in-1 Powerball tab by Electrasol, if Costco had it on sale, but usually I just buy the blue and white 2-in-1 tabs, since I am already using Jet Dry and don't need the extra rinse agent in the Powerball.

fA few times I used the house brand from VONS market (owned by Safeway and the product carried a Safeway brand) which seems to clean just as well...the only negative was that these tablets did not seem to have such a long shelf life. Even though each one was individually wrapped, I would often find the tablet crumbled when I opened the wrapper, so I had to load it in the dispenser VERY carefully.

Now and then I have had to open the machine after the detergent was dispensed. I've never seen excess suds, but then again I don't have softened water. Quite possibly the product may produce excessive suds in soft water, but not here.

 

[launderess]

Our local water is soft, and had the same results with Electrasol "3in1" tablets,and to an extent the others as well; very much excess foaming. Dishwasher would sound as if it was struggling to pump water because of all the foam. This was with 1/4 tablet (one half tablet divided between pre-wash and main wash cycles. Our dishwasher repairman said it was not a good idea to let the first cycle to without any detergent,which is how directions for tablets say to use. Something about all that much and such being sprayed around.

Also one likes to stock up on products when they are on sale, including dishwasher detergent. Well when Electrasol began to phase out the canisters of the first incarnation of tablets, in favour of the new "powerball" version, the former went on clearance, so stocked up. Did the same when many local stores stopped carrying Electrasol tablets all together. In the end had rather a huge stash which too awhile to work though, however many of tablets of both kinds turned hard as hockey pucks. Yes, all were kept dry and the plastic wrappings were all intact, yet still it took a mashing with a hammer to break up the things.

On and another thing, always took out the powerballs and either saved them, or chucked them. Already use Ecover rinse agent, and didn't need more.

Was very happy with Cascade "Pure Rinse", but it seems some fool has now turned that into Cascade with "Dawn Grease Fighters", so am trying to hunt down remaining stock of the older Cascade or Cascade Complete.

Saw the new "Finish" while down at the shops yesterday, and noticed the box felt very heavy compared to the same size of Cascade. Upon reading the ingredient list, all was made clear, Finish is the "older" formula of automatic dishwashing detergent loaded with washing soda and chlorine bleach. Chlorine bleach means no enzymes, and one finds the later cleans much better without making the kitchen smell like a laundromat in Spanish Harlem.

L.

 

[peteski50]

Dishwasher detergent!

I have used Cascade for years - powdered only. I perfer the pure rinse formular. I never liked Electrasol. I used to use Finish years ago when available but always went back to cascade. I used to also like calgonite. I am sorry they stopped making that one over here in the USA. I never did like tabs, liquids or gels. Just plain powder. If the dishers are really dirty I use more, if they are lightly soiled - I use less. I like to judge how much - with the tabs you canno't do that.
Peter

 

[vacuumfreeeke]

I've had dismal performance from the Cascade 2 in 1 action pacs and am currently experiencing awful performance from Electrasol (Finish) powder. They just don't clean well at all!

I was happy to finish the pacs. Now I've tried to be a little too liberal with the Finish just to use it up. That didn't work well... not only were the dishes still dirty afterwards, but they had powder residue (grit) all over them and I had to do a second wash with only vinegar and no detergent to get rid of the grit (worked great). I almost came on here and made a post offering to send this crap to the first person that wanted it, but changed my mind thinking I might get in trouble for sending white powder in the mail!

When I'm done with this joke detergent, I'm going back to Great Value brand powder and I will NEVER stray again. It's performance has always been awesome.... I don't even know why I was silly enough to try anything else. Victim of advertising I guess!

I've never noticed any sudsing with any detergents though!

 

[cehalstead]

detergent performance

I find it amazing that we have so many different results with the same detergents. I switched from years of Cascade use to Electrasol/Finish about six months ago and am very pleased with the results with Electrasol/Finish. I also like the bleach smell and the "squeaky clean" feel that my dishes have that they did not have with Cascade. I am sure that the differences are the result of different water temps, machine performance and water hardness. Guess this proves that one should try all brands and stick with the one that works best for them. My dishwashers are a '98 Maytag JetClean (excellent machine...I dread the day I have to replace it), and a '94 Frigidaire compact portable....

 

[polkanut]

I know this has been said before, but for the cleaning ability of a higher end detergent without the high price, Wal-Mart brand dw detergent does an excellent job.

 

[whitekingd]

I used to love Cascade Pure Rinse formula! Never had good results with Electrosal. But now that Cascade has the Grease Fighting Power of Dawn, I find the results are not as good. Leave a good product alone! PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[andrewinorlando]

Been using WalMart Great Value for years, and for $1.88 a box, I have absolutely no complaints about it's performance, from fine china and crystal to grimy pots and pans. It works great in the LG!

 

[drhardee]

I also purchased a large canister of the "Finish" nee Electrasol 3-in-1 tabs and they suds up horribly in my Miele. It does sound like it's gasping for water, which it probably is. It's back, once and for all, to the Miele tabs. I know that Wal-Mart powder works well, and I'll get a small box to use in-between times. The Miele tabs are $31.00 for a box of 80, true, but I've never been disappointed, either.

I'll give the Electrasol to the neighbor to use in her new Bosch.

 

[bajaespuma]

I love the Wal-Mart brand as well. Nice and high in phosphate level and it smells good too!

Wish I could find the old shiny boxes of Monsanto-made Dishwasher All! Now there was some powerful s**t!

Also, I generally dose my machine with liquid detergent in one dispenser and powder in t'other. I figure what one detergent can't clean, t'other will.

 

[rolls_rapide]

Thanks for all your replies

When Benckiser fiddled about in the late 1980s/early '90s with the UK formulations, it was quite revealing.

During the late Eighties, Finish 'Compact' powder was launched. It was a new concentrated, enzymatic formulation with oxygen bleach, designed to be gentle on fine china. It never seemed to be that effective in Mum's Zanussi machine, which could wash a load in just over an hour.

However, a few years later it was replaced by Finish 'Compact Plus'. This was a concentrated chlorine formulation that removed tea stains perfectly. This was superceded once again, by a biological formulation, which gave poorer performance.

 

[maytagbear]

Water hardness and temperature!

The properties of local water make a huge difference in dishwasher performance!

Kent's city water is only slightly hard, about 3 grains per gallon. I've had good luck with most enzyme detergents. I would never go back to a chlorine based detergent.

My all time modern favourite dishwasher detergent is Somat 7 in 1 tablets. Followed by Cascade Pure Rinse/Target powder.

Yes, the Great Value POWDER is excellent, but I try not to spend any money at Wal*Mart, at all.

My historic favourite was Calgonite from around 1975. Miss it.

Lawrence/Maytagbear

 

[lavamat_jon]

We've chopped and changed between Fairy, Finish and own brand tablets for the dishwasher recently, and I have to say that bearing in mind Finish and Fairy tablets cost about £6-7 for 30 washes, neither perform as well as the own brand Sainsbury's tablets which outperforms the premium brands and only costs around £3 for 32 loads. Have found that with constant use of own brand washing powder clothes would smell musty off the clothes horse so we weren't pleased with the general result over time, but with these Sainsbury's dishwasher tablets we have had no problem now after using them since about Christmas time. These aren't even the ones from the Perform and Protect range Henkel make - just the generic 3in1 tabs that come in the blue box which I presume is made by McBride.

Rinse aid - well we're still using a 5l bottle of Calgonit professional rinse aid that we bought from JTF when we still had the AEG dishwasher, and we still have a third of the bottle left. Probably the best £5 we've ever spent considering how much rinse aid is to buy normally in the small bottles!

Jon

 

[MrX]

I used fairy liquid pouch tablets and actually had to stop using them before using up the entire pack as my dishes were coming out very sticky and appeared to be coated with some kind of film.

I generally find either Sun Power Tabs or Finish Max in One are the best and I just buy whichever one is best value when I'm in the supermarket. One of them is always on special offer.

I haven't found Finish Quantum any good. Over priced and has no advantages.

 

[nickuk]

I stopped using Finish for the same reason - oversudsing - and began using Tesco 5in1 which are Henkel Glist (Somat). Everything was much much better - that is a great product.

Then just as an experiment we decided to cut the cost even more and went for Tesco Value Tablets just to try, expecting to be disappointed. £1.78 for 30. I was amazed to discover that the tablets appeared to be exactly the same as the 5in1! The wrappers look cheaper but the tabs look identical. And they clean great! Have been using these for about six months now. Subscribed to Which one month ago to look at washing machines and peekd at detergent results - for once they got it right, and they name Tesco Value Dishwasher Tablets as the best cleaner and best buy. I can't believe I'm writing this - I'm such a brand snob!

We have had no probs at all APART from mashed potato. It's been so long, I forgot, do dishwasher detergents normally clean mashed potato from mashers? The pan comes out spotless but the masher comes out barely touched! Weird. Maybe it's a loading issue not a detergent one. Anyhow, overall I really rate this product. I always fill with salt (Tesco) and Rinse Aid (McBride Clean and Fresh) and am really happy with it. Apart from the pesky mashed potato.

Nick

 

[aquarius1984]

You still use a potato masher? How 1960's? LOL

There I was thinking everyone did a "Delia" and used an electric handwhisk....