Dishwasher Tabs etc

[aquarius1984]

i feel that the detergent with added softener thread has been hijacked enough so ive opened a thread about dishwasher tabs for those who want to ellaborate.

In my Merloni Hotpoint dishwasher from 2002. DWF31 which is still going thank god........

I always use either Finish lemon powder (i like the scent) or plain classic Finish tabs, like Persil im brand loyal as at the time this was recommended by Hotpoint dishwashers and they work very well on everyday items like plates and glasses etc which i wash on the 50*c economy wash, this is 88 minutes long and washes for 45 very effective and the temp is similar to washing by hand,
funnily enough im not too bothered about sanitization at this temp where i would be in my washer with dishclothes and toilet cloths.

washing up liquid does a dandy job at preventing bacteria on dishes and with dishwsher detergents being stronger i dont feel het up about it.

greasy pans etc go in on a 70*c intensive when i have them.

Always finish salt and rinse aid. and topped off with a finish dishwasher freshener.

Nick

 

[petek]

I swear by Electrosol tabs, I think they're the same as Finish. None of the powders seem to work as well. We're just trying some Cascade tabs here at moms this week and they seem to work well. The package says they're apple something scented but I can't smell anything,, not that i wanted to.

 

[launderess]

Used to love Electrasol tabs, then they had to go and add "Jet Dry" and that killed the deal. The tabs were already high sudsing and the rinse agent made things worse. Now use Cascade Complete or just Cascade "Pure Rinse" (which ever is on sale/cheapest), and the difference is like night and day. With the Electrasol tabs one heard nothing during the wash cycles due to the froth muffling the water jets, with the Cascade you hear all the lovely "swoosh, swoosh" as the water is jetted about the dw.

Oh yes, our dw repairman told us to only use 1/2 tab for all but the most grimy loads. Also to either split the 1/2 tab in half, putting one section into each detergent drawer for each wash cycle, or if using 1 tab split in half as above. According to repairman leaving the first cycle with no detergent as the tab's directions state means all the muck and oils from the pre-wash cycle are going to be sprayed all over the dishes, possibly causing etching.

Am more than certian dishwasher tab makers got wise to consumers splitting tabs into portions, so what did they do? Bring out "liqui-tabs" that cannot be split at all.

Personally am not that crazy about dishwasher tabs as I like to control the amount of dw detergent needed. Some loads are really dirty, others need just a quick clean. Powders are easier to dose.

L.

 

[seamusuk]

Nick......

I believe your DWF31 is actually one of the last Bosch made machines- thats why its still going lol

Seamus

 

[seamusuk]

Wash Temps

Nick

I usually use the Eco 50 programme and the last rinse is actually 65 with an option to programme the machine as a one off to do it at 75. According to an enviromental health guy one of our engineers spoke to 63 is the critical temperature that salmonella/Ecoli etc is killed at. Therefore anything coming out is basically sterile

Seamus

 

[nickuk]

I have also found the same thing, Launderess, with UK Finish tabs. Too sudsy, muffle the sound of the dishwasher amd the sparays are much less strong. With ageing dishwashers one can hear the circulation pump struggle to get the proper flow of water through it, clogged with suds. This can't be good for the mechancics. I used Finish classic tabs 1996-2001 then gave them up in favour of store brand tabs which have no scent and don't foam AT ALL!!

BTW, UK dishwashers don't ordinarily do a `double wash' cycle like your ones seem to. They are cold fill only over here which accounts for higher cycle times. The argument is that the enzymes activate as the water heats and that the oxygen bleach in the detergent has longer to work. What our machines tend to do is a cold water prewash for about 10 minutes, drain, then refill, open the detergent compartment, begin washing and heating. The wash takes about 20 mins to reach 65 degrees which is traditionally the `normal' setting, and then the machine will wash for a further 15 minutes or so at hot temperature. This is followed by a cold rinse then a final hot rinse and air dry. A `normal' cycle takes 90 minutes.

Everyone's machines are different of course but I believe the above is fairly accurate description of traditional full size UK dishwashing. Nowadays of course there is the trend towards lower temperatures etc etc................

When I lived with my folks, we got a dishwasher installed when I was eleven years old and my Dad just stopped getting colds, coughs etc etc. Never looked back! Hate visiting some homes to this day, spotting a sink full of tepid brown water with no visible foam left, then, oh no! In goes a plate to be washed in that! If I ever wash up I don't fill my bowl, I squirt detergent onto a sanitised brush and just wash under hot tap and rinse.....and unlike laundry detergents which I'm still evaluating and playing about with, I've used the same dish soap for ten years and have no desire to change. Plain old green Fairy liquid.

Back to dishwahsers, Nick, it may well be that your economy 50 cycle does a hot (70ish) final rinse anyway, so this would have some additional germ killing. Annoyingly, my Zanussi on economy setting does a 50 final rinse, then adds about 45 minutes to the drying cycle to compensate making total cycle time 2 and a half hours! What a pile of junk. So I use Normal cycle mostly, especially seeing that it's washing stuff which my toddler eats and drinks from.

 

[seamusuk]

Finish website

Loadsa options!!!!

Loading…

www.finish.co.uk

 

[aquarius1984]

yeah my Hotpoint is bosch made i forgot to say. Nick i did wonder about the last rinse temp as things come out very hot ive noticed when ive been around to empty it direct after cycle. Ive never handwashed a thing since 1995 everything goes in the dishwasher that i use. I like putting my wooden spoons and chopping boards in and when they split they get replaced.but having said that my main chopping board is nearly 5 years old now. Been through a few small onion garlic boards and they never keep a hint of odour. I hardly use pans these days for veg as i love my steamer and the plastic tiers wash brilliantly in my Hotpoints economy wash. I really rate finish but mum uses Tesco tabs and i noticed too they are definitely Glist. Tesco dishwasher fresheners are different shape to glist but are still full of grapefruit scent crystals like glist ones. nick

 

[seamusuk]

Not quite everything...

Goes in the dishwasher- I hand wash oven trays and also things like my HUGE Cappuccino cup and milk jug. The dishwasher dosent always go on every day(live alone) and they get used more often than that lol!.
Also the only wooden chopping board I own is the breadboard- sticking that in could be classed as overkill lol!

Seamus

 

[aquarius1984]

oh forgot Seamus

thanks about the info on the last rinse temps. I only spoke to Nick about it and you contributed an answer too. Well maybe bread boards dont matter too much. But contraveracialy i use the same wooden board for everything. Raw meat cooked meat etc. If i need to carve cooked meat after preparing raw joints eg rolling and tieing i soak the board in bleach while the meats cooking to sanitise it. After carving its dishwashered. By the way wooden boards are better for knives and are more hygienic than plastic boards. They have natural enzymes in them that prevents bacteria build up in cut grooves. Environmental Health are slowly letting wood boards back into kitchens provided they are colour coded. But please dont think im unhygienic with my chopping board im very careful and cook for many people of all ages with a 100% clean track record in hygiene.

 

[seamusuk]

Hey Nick

Cheers- I wasnt questioning ur hygiene at all lol!!.

Changing the subject I cant understand anyone that dosent own/want a dishwasher!!- If you dont have the space you stick the washer in the bathroom and put it where the washer should be, thats what I did anyway

Seamus

 

[aquarius1984]

hear hear

my mum has almost always had one. An indesit from the late 80s then a 1994 tricity bendix and that was still working when i split with my ex in march.we had the Hotpoint (well my hotpoint) And mum now uses it i lent it her as the bendix was on its last legs. It did approx 6105 loads each time on 65degrees normal. What a worker! All that went wrong was the door springs went. Everything else was perfect. Still cleaned the lot. I really miss my Hotpoint now i moved in with a mate. We got no dishwasher! Plenty of Persil aloe vera though. It smells great. I talk about my dishwasher habits from when i had my own place and from the age of being able to cook. 10 and was doing sunday roasts etc. I really miss being a chef sometimes but then i think of the long hours and rubbish pay.

 

[ricky5050]

Try Ecover !!

I was going to write a thread about dishwasher detergents too, as i have had to have a few trial and errors with my 1970's Bendix you may have seen on pre 1985 section earlier this year.

Because the bendix is an older syle i thought i would go the whole hog and buy dishwasher powder salt and rinse aid. So off i popped to the co op and bought their lemon version, filled up machine to discover problem one. It seems the small rubber seal on the rinse aid dispenser had perished allowing air in and rinse aid out CONTINUOSLY meaning after 1 - 2 min wash the machine began to make all sors of rising and falling motor sounds, and because it has much higher pressures that a new machine , when i opened it it was full of lather! it took nearly 5 cycles off me manually turning the dial round the clear the back log. I then remomved the dispenser and emptied it. My Mams dishwasher is a 16 year old AEG Favorite 420 and its rinse aid dispenser has never worked since day 1 but we live in a very soft water area so glasses are always spotless and using no rinse aid gives them a nice squeaky clean feel as opposed to the slimy feel too much does.

So next wash i used the powder on its own but again it lathered a little too much so i abandoned it to Ecover dishwasher tablets ( the have no salt or rinse aid ) and they clean very well and cause zero lather so the machine makes a wonderfull sh sh sh sh as the spray arms whizz around un hindered, but this the showed up problem two.

The salt container on this machine has a rubber bung in its top and even the instruction manual says it can pop off from time to time ( i guess caused by a pressure difference ), so during the dry cycle i heard a boom ! and sure enough the bung had popped out, but this meant the dishes were sprayed with really salty water, causing lower plates to actually taste salty and glasses to come out looking like a junior school science experiment, so after a few bad loads like this i used the Vax to suck out all the salt and water from the salt compartment and now run the machine on one single ecover tab!

My machine doees have a double hot wash facilty and i have used it but to be honest even caseroles etc came clean on a normal hot cycle.

I would like to get a hold of a new rinse aid dispenser as its an easily removed single item but does any one know where one can be bought? Its very similar to the ones modern american machines have with two circular pieces as apposed to the square detergent combined units.

 

[ricky5050]

The older stlye rinse aid dispenser ( i need )

 

[ricky5050]

The inside with its bunged up salt dispenser !

 

[lavamat_jon]

I used to be an avid fan of Glist tablets until they were discontinued, however I found that in our area you had to use salt and rinse aid even if you used a 5 in 1 tablet as otherwise glasses will go streaky and the load doesn't dry so well. But since Glist was discontinued (sob), we tried Finish tablets but they didn't wash so well as they would always overfoam - unfortunately we bought a 90 wash box of them from Tesco so had to make them last. When they finally ran out we bought a job lot of Sun tablets from the local JTF wholesale warehouse, and that wouldn't even remove tea and coffee stains even in the Miele dishwasher. So, even though they only sell them in 1kg bottles, we went back to Finish powder (which we had used for years) and it gives great results if not better than with Glist. What I love about the Finish powder too is that you can add some more for the prewash, so you can loosen the more stubborn dirt before the wash cycle even begins. With Finish powder we've found we can get even tough pots and pans clean on the Sensor Wash cycle (which operates at between 48 and 65*C I believe), whereas if you were washing pans with really baked on crud with Glist, Finish or Sun tablets you had to use the Pots & Pans 75*C wash.

So seeming as we used salt and rinse aid anyway in addition to tablets, we've found that we might as well use powder detergent which works out cheaper, and also despite being cheaper overall gives the best overall result.

In terms of dishwasher air fresheners, we use that white Finish Odourstop one - and I have to say it smells gorgous! Not as gorgeous as the grapefruit Glist one, but it's a nice smell none the less and much nicer than that lemon scented Finish ones we bought once and threw away after 2 cycles because of the vile smell! The mint one they did for a while was nice though - shame they discontinued that but the white one is just as nice so it makes up for it .

Speaking of lemon scented, I've found that lemon scented powders/tablets are OK as the smell is rinsed out, and that it's the smell of rinse aid that is more important as to the final waft of smell you get when the dishwasher is opened.

Rinse aid - we have a huge 5l bottle of Calgonit rinse aid (which I believe is German) from the JTF warehouse, and in a year we've not even touched shy of using a 1/6 of the bottle. Does a great job (it's the same as your Finish rinse aid you buy in those small bottles for £1.99 or whatever), yet the whole 5l bottle only cost £2.99 to buy! How much value is that?

Jon

 

[aquarius1984]

Mint Finish Freshmer

Hehe Jon our local home and baragain shop has loads of these. Maybe i could get you some? I prefer the mint ones over lemon but have not yet tried the odour stop. Not got my dishwasher sob sob. nick

 

[maytagbear]

Goodness!

Dishwashering is far more complex over in Merrrie Olde!

The few times I had an odour problem in a dishwasher, I just ran a long cycle empty and used detergent in both dispenser cups.

Lawrence/Maytagbear

 

[dixieland]

I like Electrasol the best. Target has started stocking the classic fresh scent lately. Great Value - from wal-mart was rated a consumer reports best buy.