Dishwasher pacs/tablets in older machines

[joeypete]

Since getting my Hobart KA, I've been doing a lot of research on different detergents. I really miss my Finish tabs but I have concerns about using them in older machines. Biggest concern is that they won't dissolve completely in the rather short 10 minute wash segments on my machine.

After reading on both the Finish and the Cascade website, they mention that only 1 pac/tab is needed per wash load and to put it in the main wash detergent cup. I can see the Cascade pacs working ok since they dissolve quickly however. The website did state they are concentrated and will work better than filling both cups.

For the Cascade (and Sam's pacs) I can see putting only 1 in the main detergent cup. On a "Normal" cycle on my KA that would mean the first heated pre-wash segment would be just water, as would the following rinse. For the Soak&Scrub-Pots/Pan cycle I think I would throw one in the tub at the beginning and also put one in the main wash. That would give really dirty baked on loads a double dose.

For the Finish tabs, I'm not so sure of the best way to use them..if at all.

Anyone use pacs or tabs in their older dishwasher?

Love to hear what you use and how it works.

Thanks!

 

[askolover]

No problems

using them in my '94 KUDI23 and it has 10 min segments too.  I was concerned about etching my glassware with them and softened water.  I have put one in the open side of the dispenser and just let it start with the first wash and everything comes out clean.  By putting it in the first wash I know it will dissolve completely.  Plus, it doesn't foam as much with more soil to act on AND it has a better chance to completely rinse out.  If I were using regular gel or powder detergent in both cups it would start with the first wash anyway.  Just my .02   YMMV

 

[joeypete]

Thanks Greg! I was thinking I would put it in the prewash cup too...just to be safe. I mean even on my new Frigidaire, it released the dispenser pretty early on in the cycle...right after the prewash rinse to determine the cycle time.

I have had good luck with the Cascade Complete powder, but I was curious about what other people use for pacs/tabs.

 

[yogitunes]

I use one for most loads, granted I have a newer tall tub KA.....

and that's just it, depends on the load and soil level = what cycle is selected....

if I use the soak n' scour cycle, the first fill, or pre-wash rinse is the actual soaking time frame, and through this period, it pulses the motor for short burst and heating water in-between......I toss one tablet into the dispenser, and a second on into the center near the sump area, just to make sure it is being dissolved.....

for a heavily soiled load, the second one is placed in the silverware rack.....

but yeah, for the most part its hard to get past the mental part of this tiny cube will clean a regular load as well as powder/gel in both compartments, yet it does....

but I do wonder, older machines which used plenty of water for a fill versus todays machines, about the concentration of chemical...

kind of takes you back to your mothers, and well as ourselves, getting past the one cup use of laundry detergent, now to using 1/4 cup, and expecting the same results...

 

[joeypete]

Cool thanks Martin....good tips. Yeah It's amazing that they can get everything so clean lol. I never really thought about it until I got my KA honestly. I think the powders and gels are really still being made for these older machines. But good to know I can make the newer detergents work.

I used the Sam's pacs before and they worked great. There was def more foam with those though. The Cascade Complete powder doesn't produce hardly any, even with filling the cup completely. Big difference there.

I don't mind using the powder but the pacs are just so much easier. Gels I haven't used in years because they were always so messy. Then you had to deal with getting that last bit out when the bottle gets empty LOL. I guess they tend to gunk up the dispensers too from what I've read.

 

[yogitunes]

oh yeah, talk about experimenting....there were good and bad amongst many

I found gels better than the white chalky liquid....sometimes they would separate, and true, as they chalked up around the bottle, think what they were doing in your machine...

yet, they never invented a bottle that allowed full use of all the contents, so we rigged our own concoction of holding the bottle upside down.....even rinsing out that last bit, used as a pre-wash...

there used to be an old tale of cleaning your dishwasher with a teaspoon of powdered TANG, of course it was the citric acid that worked, think about what it was doing inside your body?....

I do find the tablets convenient, easy to use and dispense......although some look identical to the ones for laundry unless your careful.....or you have a partner that put the wrong one in the wrong machine......been there!

were moving forward in a backwards world.....don't know if you remember days of Salvo Tablets for washing....conveniences that didn't catch on for long...

makes you think, what's going to be the next "have to have it, can't live another day with out it?"

 

[launderess]

Even with the portable Frigidaire

Found Electrasol then Finish tablets created too much froth. Would use one half tab per load split between pre-wash and main cycle.

The MM is *VERY* fussy about detergent with many modern versions creating too much froth if used at full cup dosage. Expect this has something to do with the large amount of water used and force at which it is thrown.

Was given a box of Finish tabs a month or so ago by someone moving house and had no use. Tried one tab split between first and main wash. Too much froth for my liking but nothing that couldn't be managed with some defoamer. Haven't tried again so that is me for you.

 

[perc-o-prince]

Be careful with any of the plastic-wrapped tabs/pouches/pods. Despite the manufacturer's assertions, the wrapper does NOT always disintegrate! We've found the plastic lodged in circulation pumps and drain pumps!

Chuck

 

[toploader55]

My newest machine is the KenWhirl from 2004 with the Ultra Wash System.

Being everything else is Vintage I only use Powders. Those Plastic Pouch thingies make me schkeeve as I just don't like the idea of plastic melting and then being re deposited on the wares. Yeah, Yeah, the rinses and all that.

Just not for me. And I just like the option of a double wash at my discretion.

And I'm not sure, but could powders be better for the Pump System and Chambers ?

 

[beekeyknee]

Personally, I'm still on old formula Cascade w/phosphate. When that is gone I will probably switch to Bubble Bandit or Cascade Fryer Boil Out. My mother uses current Cascade powder with some STPP added. The inside of her machine seems to have lost it's gloss on the porcelain, as where mine is still shiny. Maybe she's using too much STPP, but I didn't think phosphate would etch porcelain? Maybe there's some kind of reaction between the new Cascade and the STPP? I really don't know what's going on there.

 

[panthera]

'plastic' wrapped tablets

I suppose, by definition, the wrappings on these liquids/tablets/gel-powder combinations are 'plastic'.

They are completely water soluble and nothing at all remains behind on the dishes being washed.

Nothing.

Anything caught in a sump or deposited on the otherwise clean dishes is not the wrapper.

Either one has accidentally put the remove-before-use wrapper in with the tablet or some other plastic film has somehow gotten into the machine.

 

As to using these in vintage machines - our 1960's KitchenAide portable has no problem using them. They dissolve completely and clean quite well. Then again, we've never NOT had any detergent clean well in that machine. The bottom rack and silverware, at least. Upper racks, depends on how it's loaded.

We've used one teaspoon TSP (it does dissolve completely in our water) and either a German gel-pack or a FINISH tablet in the main wash compartment of our vintage GEs for a few years now with perfect results. So - at least in machines going back to 1966, no problem.

 

If you're skeptical, why not take a film-covered pack and place it in a large bowl of hot tap water? Stir it a bit and you'll have your answer. Makes a great pre-soak for burnt on foods, so not even wasted.

 

[washer111]

Personally:

Have always opted for the powder varieties, as they are always much cheaper here in Australian than tablets (and lets face it, work just as well).
Unfortunately, have absolutely no say about shopping since moving into the share-house, other than ingredients necessary for my allotted cooking night. LOL.

I'd suggest powder if you can get it cheap, otherwise, you should experiment with tablets and see what does and does not work. I'm thinking gel packs might be best-suited for shorter washes than "hard clumps of powder" tablets.

On those plastic wrappers, the DW here is a DishDrawer (yay!). Those dissolvable-plastic-wrapped Finish things don't dissolve properly in it, and did cause issues with the filter and washability, despite the reasonably long main-washes and warm temperatures. An insert is used for the cutlerly basket in this instance.
So when those were in use, we simply peeled the wrapper and placed the tablet appropriately, and no issues whatsoever with cleaning, as per my past experiences with the families DD. Dunno why these should be an issue, as I personally dissolved the wrappers after carefully peeling off. May just be related to constant-running water streams as opposed to a quick blast every few seconds.

 

[joeypete]

I was going to do just that Panthera! haha. Thanks for all the insight. I've always had good luck with the Finish tabs. I started using them around 2009-2010 when the phosphates started disappearing out of the detergents. I had used Cascade forever but without realizing what was going on, I started to get a white film on all my dishes. I was living in Tucson at the time and the water there was VERY hard. So I switched to (then) Electrasol and it fixed the problem. I just kept using them.

Like always, I enjoy experimenting with different detergents...though I haven't been as adventurous with dishwashing detergent. I shop at Sam's a lot so it was convenient and affordable to get the Member's Mark pacs. But they were leaving rust spots on my cutlery so that was my main reason for not using them anymore. I may try the Cascade regular pacs next. That's what they have at Sam's.

 

[logixx]

"Unfortunately, have absolutely no say about shopping since moving into the share-house"

Yikes! What a nightmare. Shared apartments... *shudders*

As far as polyvinyl alcohol wrappers go: I never had a problem with them not dissolving completely in less than five minutes.

 

[washer111]

LOL Logixx

The other four are perfectly fine. The two sisters "in charge" so to speak have lived in this way for several years now. Cooking and cleaning rostered, clean up after oneself and so on. Works quite well.

The eldest is responsible for the shopping, she sticks to the list, buys items on sale and thats that. So they're pretty frugal in that way. Shops are "hit" every other week.

This situation is far cheaper than the college dorms, and I only have to cook 4 nights of the working week, plus "whatever" over the weekends. So big plus

 

[kenmoreguy64]

Joe

In my 1986 Potscrubber 1200, I have been using entry level Cascade pacs and Cascade powder, the phosphated variety that I found at Big Lots a couple years ago.

The powder works great. We have decent municipal water here in Charlotte, so all I need is to fill the main cup about 3/4 full. Dishwasher manual says not to use the pre-wash cup unless using Normal wash or Potscrubber cycle. I use Light Soil most if the time.

The pacs work great as well and I can confirm your thoughts on using them in an older machine. It is surprising how quickly they dissolve ... It seems almost immediate. I hear the detergent cup open and instantly smell the scent of the pac coming from the dishwasher's vent. I have not noticed any remnant plastic blobs anywhere, but since older machines use a decent amount of water, I think there is less likelihood to find undissolved gobs anywhere.

When I do want to boost detergent in a heavy wash when using the pacs, I use powder in the supplemental cup and the pac for the main wash. Using two pacs per load seems expensive.

Could you use a combination of powder and pacs if you wanted?

By the way, when I tried Fisish PowerBall or Finish Quantum, I found what others have mentioned in the way of too much foam.

Gordon

 

[gelaundry4ever]

my mom uses powder

My mom would use powder detergent in addition to the packs and rinse aid when she used pots and pans and soak and scour. She's been doing that ever since she had the '07 whirlpool my dad has now since it didn't clean dishes too well.

 

[joeypete]

Last night I ran the Soak&Scour-Pots/Pans Cycle with SaniRinse because I made Easter dinner. It was a full load too...2 baking dishes, 1 for the ham (that wasn't too dirty) and 1 for green bean casserole. That was a Pfaltzgraff soufflé pan and really had some baked on bits. I used my Cascade complete powder...filled both detergent cups and also the indented open one (which the manual says to use for SS/PP cycle). Everything, of course, was spotless. Even the soufflé pan. I really think if I had used the pacs, I would have put one in the sump area for the Soak&Scour period. I don't know...I guess I'd have to try it with just one but seems hard to believe it would get the pan clean with just the one in the main wash cup. Maybe on a newer dishwasher lol.

I could seriously get away with just using Light Wash on my daily loads because my dishes don't get horrible. Just 1 rinse period gets rid of most everything in this beast of a KA! haha. I use Normal most times because I wash my cat's food dishes in the dishwasher and I like to make sure they get cleaned well. The only difference between Light and Normal on my machine is the extra rinse in between the wash segments. After using Light one day, I found some bits of wet cat food near the sump so I was like, no way! haha. Might have just been a flewk but I'd rather use Normal.

So I may still try the Cascade pacs and see how they do.

 

[panthera]

I doubt very much that any newer machine can approach your

vintage KA in cleaning ability, regardless of detergent used.

They simply don't use enough water to avoid their filters getting choked up on the heavy stuff.

Found that out the day I three two bowls with pancake batter, two sets of beaters covered in the stuff, two scrapers and all the rest in a GE Triton XL.

Nearly choked her to death, poor stupid thing. Took me an hour afterwards to get the gunk out of every tube and orifice and that worthless filter freed up.