How often do you run your dishwasher?

[vacerator]

Love my

Whustoff cutlery from Solingen. No, it does not go in the machine.
My good flatware large fork and spoon handles do not even fit in the flatware basket of my D/W. It is not 18/10, only regular stainless. The care guide says no lemon detergents, and no soaking.

 

[panthera]

No bleach scent remains.

Of course some things don't belong in really hot water, but if you're not putting cutting boards in the dishwasher, you should think about salt.

 

[mayken4now]

4 - 5

times a week.  Sometime more often. 

 

Moms taught me that it does not have to be full to run it.  I like BobLoads however.  Always a treat for me.

 

[twintubdexter]

Thought I'd add ad a second post to this topic

I guess I've morphed into my mother in my old age. When I was a teenager working at the appliance store after school I bought my mom a TOL KitchenAid dishwasher. Installation was done by a professional and was involved since there was no dishwasher in the kitchen before. My mother was very appreciative but continued to do dishes by hand for a family of six. The dishwasher was used a few times over the years on holidays but even that tapered off. My mom ended up using the KitchenAid as a kitchen cupboard. I often regret not removing that dishwasher when we sold the house a few years ago and bringing it home. I could have easily replaced it with a Craigslist cheapy. I use my dishwasher a little more than she did but not by much.

 

Slightly off topic is doing laundry. Like dishes, a single person doesn't necessarily generate a lot of dirty clothes although I wear clean things daily, sometimes more. Here in the Desert you dress differently 365 days a year, especially if you're retired. I wear shorts and T-shirts almost every day, occasionally a shirt with a collar. I honestly cannot remember the last time I wore long pants, maybe on Christmas. This means that sorting and doing separate loads in the washer wouldn't be practical. Sheets get washed by themselves because they're big but combo loads work for everything else. I'm at that "in-between" stage of laundry...too old to be active enough to get my clothes really soiled and not quite old enough to start having "accidents." I can only imagine would it would be like doing separate dishwasher loads for plastics, wood-handled knives and the like. My being lazy probably has something to do with it too.

 

[ea56]

We run our GE dishwasher about every other day. I seldom rinse anything except pans which I give a light swish with a sponge and BarKeepers Friend. Even Pyrex baking dishes and casseroles come out perfectly clean. We always do full "Bob" loads. And I put just about everything in the dishwasher. I do run the hot water at the sink before starting the machine to get hottest water possible. I always use the Normal cycle with Heat Boost and no heat dry. When we got the dishwasher in 12-2014 (it is a mol GDS 520) it came with a few Cascade Platinum pods which I used. I I then bought some Finish Quantum tabs and they worked well too. But about 3 mo. ago I was In Target and I bought some of their best Up&Up dishwasher pods to give them a try. They work just a well or better than the Cascade Platinum and they smell like old time All dishwasher detergent.

This GE works way better than the mol 2005 Maytag that it replaced. I almost never had a finished load in that machine that didn't require something to be cleaned by hand. With the GE this almost never happens.
Eddie

 

[tolivac]

I have run my Wusthoff and Cutco knives thru the dishwasher when mine worked.No problems to the knives at all.When they got dull thru USE-sharpened them in a jiffy with a Work Sharp sharpener from Agri Supply-that thing REALLY works!!Just a few swipes of the blade thru the Work-Sharp-knife cuts like new!!!Presently doing dishes by hand until I can find a REAL dishwasher-will look in the swap shop-sometimes they get dishwashers.Both of my KA ones are dead.

 

[washerman250]

On a regular day I will run my zanussi dishwasher about 2-3 times if we have done some baking aswell it can add up to about 5 times the cycle takes 3:10 on the intensive 65* never had a problem apart from when the door catch went and we can now run it with the door open

 

[vacerator]

re; cutting boards

I put the nylon ones in. My good large wooden butcher block board get's cleaned with soap, water, then oiled with food grade mineral oil.

 

[daveamkrayoguy]

re: Pre-Rinsing is BULL-$#@^*!!!!

Cover your ears, or in this case, shield your eyes, because I am about to do a lot of SWEARING!!!!

 

$#@*^!!!! --And DOUBLE-<span style="font-size: 12pt;">$#@*^!!!!</span>

 

<span style="font-size: medium;">Why? Because there was a bowl sitting in my kitchen sink </span>filled<span style="font-size: medium;"> nearly to the top with water & a spoon in it...  And while they were at least both dairy (although I've finally gotten out of having to follow that practice, but it means no more mail-order Lenny Dee or Pat Boone (though he's coming to Illinois in Oct.) it seems as though my dad stopped over here to have some ice cream, and must have failed to acknowledge that:</span>

 

<span style="font-size: medium;">YOU DON'T NEED TO PRE-RINSE DISHES!!!! WE HAVE A DISHWASHER!!!! --And it does the dirtiest stuff, although I would appreciate stuff scraped off of the dishes wit' a SPOON and put in Yo' Mouth...! --That's my way of belonging to the clean-plate club, but, still, make the stuff look DIRTY & not so schmutzy that you over-work my dishwasher's built-in garbage disposal that it might have, or clog-up the draining... </span>

 

<span style="font-size: medium;">Or if the cabinet has any food particles flung around it that at least stay off of what the machine DOES make the honest effort to clean, then I buy dishwasher cleaner and use it 'at least that Once-A-Year'...</span>

 

<span style="font-size: medium;">[Hopefully I'm through ranting about this for good...]</span>

 

 

<span style="font-size: medium;">-- Dave</span>

[this post was last edited: 5/29/2016-10:47]

 

[mark_wpduet]

Yes, pre rinsing is dumb

UNLESS IT'S EGGS. I rinse anything with egg on it. I can't stand that wet dog smell it leaves all over everything. It doesn't matter which detergent, if you use bleach, anything...the smell almost makes me want to never eat eggs again.

 

[panthera]

Dave,

You have spoken from my heart.
The biggest fights in our house are over this.
We have a party. My partner's friends, all prissy queens, pre-rinse everything, stuff it into the dishwasher (but don't run it, oh, no - we could still get an atom of Hydrogen in there, donchano).
They put nothing down the garbage disposer (which is a 1.25 horsepower industrial unit that can eat oxbones whole).
So - exhausted at the end of a long holiday, I have a friggen paper compactor bag which just barfed up all over the floor I just scrubbed clean, seven dishwasher loads to wash, no hot water left and a drove of hysterical queens screaming to my partner that I'm ruining the garbage disposal with green beans and potato salad.

GRRRRRRR

 

[daveamkrayoguy]

Mark WP Duet:

 

Well, eggs usually get scrubbed off of plates--no trace, nor smell after those have been washed! However, my wife (there we go w/ her playing her Lisa Douglas to my Oliver Wendell Douglas again!) puts an egg in a bowl, at least covers it thoroughly w/ saran Wrap that at least not once has it ever exploded all over the microwave--yeh, she MICROWAVES it--no frying in a pan w/ oil or grease for her...

 

However, even if she scrapes out the bowl with a piece of bread, after eating the egg, (of which I tell her to always use TWO slices to maintain an even amount--I'm also that way w/ sliced cheese) there are still remnants of egg that remain and bowls that we avoid using w/ cooked-on egg left there, until over time they some-how disintegrate or evaporate into think air, because now we can eat out of all of them & she makes Laura's eggs that way, too...  I never will--although our daughter protests she wants every egg cooked that way, though I refuse to, but she does give in & eat the eggs I make "my way"... (--Yes, sung to the Frank Sinatra tune, LOL!)

 

Panthera:

 

--Pretty wild story you got there...  More than words can say...

 

And typical when we host parties & gatherings at my house...  I'm Dwayne Hickman yelling, dirty words & all in front of the dishwasher like he did in one of his movies--I forgot which one...! (Yeh, heard to get the Dobie Gillis out of him, and if you only knew what a Dobie I was in my day, even before I discovered that show; Middle-School & High-School, in short: MY Wonder Years...)

 

I'll end with my small garbage can turned so all the plastic silverware & paper plates everyone uses DON'T get put in there, but a big black plastic bag in front of it, usually with a few pizza boxes stuffed into it just to give everyone a Goddamned Hint: I WANT YOU TO PUT YOUR GARBAGE, THERE!!!! --Not hear: "David, you need to empty your garbage can" or "Why is it being turned around, so we can't use it?"...  Although I put my big garbage can lined w/ a big bag smack-dab in the middle of the kitchen at the last fiesta (Laura's 5th B-Day!) and EVERYONE used that; there's no room anywhere to put my small wastebasket thetis strictly for OUR garbage which I could'a just brought down to the basement...

 

 

-- Dave

 

[ea56]

Panthera

what you just described is why I keep the company out of the kitchen! When I go to someone elses home for dinner I don't expect to do the clean up ( although if asked to help I will) and I don't want my company to do my clean up either. I'm very particular about my kitchen and I don't resent doing the clean up, if I invite company over its part of the whole package.

As far as the garbage disposal, I took ours out about 18 mo. ago and I don't miss it. It always looked like the Black Hole of Calcutta to me, a regular drain seems much more sanitary. It just seemed like a waste of water to me and peeling produce over the sink and throwing the peelings in the garbage is no big deal.
Eddie

 

[appnut]

I leave eggs inh bowls, skillets, and plates and they sit for a couple of days.  Pots & Pans gets them clean with no residual orders. 

 

[panthera]

Keeping guests out

As to the trash and the garbage disposal - I know, I know. I once put a gigantic 50 gallon can out. It all got thrown in the little one you keep under the dressing table to hold cotton puffs.
Garbage disposal - I love them. I put the little rubber silencer rings in the dishwasher every day (along with the scrub brush, etc.) Pour boiling hot water in every day, too.
It doesn't stink. Also has it's very own scullery sink. Always thought it was disgusting to put garbage into a sink one uses for cooking.
When I visit friends, I offer to help. If they say yes, I help. Otherwise, I stay the effing hell out of their way.
Sheesh.
Oh - and the dishwasher still does a better job with less energy and water than I ever could.

 

[lordkenmore]

I am surprise at the number of people who carefully rinse--even wash for practical purposes--everythat goes into the DW... I thought the appliance in question was the dishWASHER.

Of course, it may help with some DWs. I suppose some BOL builder's grade dishwashers might benefit from a little help on some items. Then there was the vintage GE I asked about once that was apparently so, ah, limited that one person here said it could take a clean dish and dirty it... But if one gets to that point, one might as well just hand wash.

My ex-roommate insisted on rinsing dishes. They didn't have to be clean clean, though. The explanation was concerns about the drain clogging or some such thing. There might also have been concerns about the septic system.

 

[appnut]

I've heard a comment from Magic Clean that about 90-95% of people still pre-rinse. 

 

[murando531]

It never fails, everytime we have company over and I'm putting things in the dishwasher, I get some form of a comment about putting them in dirty. When I respond with the usual "Well, I don't really understand anyone who -washes- dishes before putting them in to a -dish-WASHER-", I get the reply that "if they loaded them like that in their dishwasher, they'd never get clean". I've started saying "well, if your dishwasher can't wash dishes, that usually means something is wrong with the machine, or user error is paying a visit, because if a dishwasher lived in my house that couldn't properly wash dirty dishes, it would be out on the curb in a heartbeat". It amazes me going to other people's houses the "surprises" you can find with one's machine if you take a look. Broken wash arm harnesses, detergent doors that have no latch, machines connected to cold rather than hot (and those are the users that OF COURSE use the Light or Quick cycle, with no options), and almost always they are using cheap store brand detergent and no rinse aid to speak of.

 

[murando531]

On a different but related note, eggs, peanut butter, and mayonnaise are the only food soils that I will absolutely scrub off before loading the dish. Whether it be in a PowerClean, Voyager, Maytag RR, GE Nautilus (Potscrubber), etc., those are always soils that have trouble being removed, and even when they're "gone" they still leave an odor. What do they have in common? Complex proteins that don't break down quickly enough, even if it's a 3-4 hour cycle. Back when phosphates were a normal part of dishwasher life, they weren't quite as a nuisance, but even the enzymes of today have a difficult time with them. Even worse, the heat usually "cooks" any egg residue even further, which creates that "wet dog" smell on glass dishware.

 

[chachp]

Wet dog smell??

 

<span style="font-family: courier new,courier;">I don't rinse anything with eggs and never noticed a "Wet Dog" smell or really any kind of smell.  At least until now.  Thanks a bunch HUN (said in my best southern drawl).  </span>