Miele Twin Dos delayed cheesy smell on items

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gdc

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We are new to Miele appliances and have a twindos dispensing front load washer. We have found that items washed as whites (HOT/ EXTRA WHITE SETTING) or Regular (warm) seetings using TWINDOS come out smelling fine, but after a week or two when taken out to use- they have a rank, cheesy smell. Doesn't matter where the item is stored. I called Miele and they never heard of this. Told me to run a cleaning cycle (it's a new machine and does not smell)- wondering if we need to adjust the amount of detergent OR the temp settings. Has anyone else experienced this?
 
Cheesy smell

Do you use fabric softener?
And is the washer paired with the matching dryer?

My first reasonable thought was that the fabric softener may not play nicely with the detergent.

Fabric softener often is quite a "fatty" substance.
That might cause a cheesy smell.

Other possibility may be underdrying.

While usually laundry that is basically dry is dry enough to put away even if there is a slight damp spot somewhere.
But some circumstances can turn the slightest residual moisture into a source of smells.

I guess you are not ironing either.

Found that sometimes detergents don't do well with that.

Checking dosage might be a good idea none the less.

The preset dosages are the same as they are in Europe from what I know and we tend to have far worse water.

Maybe dialling down a few millilitres might be an option.

But yeah, nothing I ever heared of either...
 
I’ve been running twindos for 2 years now and have never had an off smell.

When Miele last serviced the machine, they dialed the dosages right down for our detergent, due to our very soft water.

I second the query about whether your adding any additives, I just have formulas 1 and 2 and don’t use fabric softener at all.

If you have the matching heat pump drier, are you leaving the clothes in there for an extended period of time? I find if I let them sit overnight, they’re damp again, and I have to run a short cycle to finish them again.
 
I've never had any problem with odors from Twin Dos but I will say that the detergent recommendations the machine comes with are too high for my water - and my water is called medium-hard by my water company. I have my dosing down to 16ml for phase 1 and 13 ml for phase 2. I have had it as high as 19 for phase 1 and 17 for phase 2, but I see no difference in performance when I lower the amount to 16 or 13.

If you are using a softener what brand is it and also please tell me what the actual Dose is you are using. Also what brand of detergent did you use before you used Twin Dos.
 
TwinDos

 

<span style="font-family: helvetica;">I have never noticed an off putting smell from the laundry after it has been put away.  We have soft water and use the Ultraphase 1 and 2 set as 23ML and 18ML.  I use Miele Fabric Softener on some loads and only 10ML.  It's about 1/2 off the cap on the bottle.  A little goes a long way with these products especially with soft water.</span>

 

<span style="font-family: helvetica;">I also like "The Laundress" products so I switch off between those and the Miele products.  However, I never mix the brands when adding Fabric Softener.</span>

 

<span style="font-family: helvetica;">I don't use FC on sheets or towels.</span>
 
Detergent related?

Could you turn off Twindos dispensing for a bit and go back to your old detergent and see if you still have the same problem? That might help you narrow down whether it’s detergent related or machine related?
 
Reply #6

 

<span style="font-family: helvetica;">I think that's a good idea.  I switch between different detergents all the time but not for your reason I just like the variety of different scents and detergents.</span>

 

<span style="font-family: helvetica;">I don't know if you have a vented dryer or not but mine is the first non vented dryer I have ever had.  I noticed over the first few months of using it that when the dryer shut off the clothes initially felt dry but then after holding for a few minutes I noticed they may not be completely dry.  I have come to the habit of using Normal Plus for the dryness level and that seems to do the trick.  I like that clothes never feel really hot and over dried with this dryer but you can easily pull them out when they are not quite ready.</span>
 
There might be several possibilities...

1: you are under-dosing the detergent, so dirt and soiling might remain in the fabrics leading to the sour smell.

2: you are overdosing, so detergent might not properly be rinsed out.

3: the detergent itself may be the cause. It might be the cocktail/composition, or it might be the fragrance components deteriorating.

4: the new machine's rubber/plastic parts might be giving off odours which become impregnated into the fabrics. I had that experience with a brand new machine and Ariel Liquid - they didn't work well together. Odd sour smell on everything. Unilever's Persil liquid was fine though.

I remember reading a short online review about someone who tried Henkel's Persil liquid. They didn't like it - compared it to vomit.
 
If clothes have been stored dry and don`t smell right after a while it means they haven`t been clean in the first place.
A smell of sour milk or a wet dish cloth might indicate to a high germ level on clothes but I think the problem is somewhere else as you complained about a vomit like smell in another thread.
If body oils or oils from personal care products, ointments and so on are not completely removed or deposit back on clothes because of not enough detergent being used, you`ll end up getting a build up on clothes that gets rancid in storage.
If it`s really bad it can even smell like vomit. I think it`s butyric acid to blame for.
As a remedy I`d use a high dose of a powdered detergent like Tide with bleach until things are back to normal. The high pH will help fighting odors.
Once things are back to normal I`d go back to the twin dose because it`s gentler on colors and fabrics but I think you need to adjust the dosage way up. Using a cycle with prewash for loads with higher oil content might help too.

Hope your clothes will smell sweet soon again
 
Rank smelling clothes

"...using TWINDOS come out smelling fine, but after a week or two when taken out to use- they have a rank, cheesy smell. Doesn't matter where the item is stored. I called Miele and they never heard of this. Told me to run a cleaning cycle (it's a new machine and does not smell)..."

Hi, I bought a new Miele W1 Excellence Powerwash a couple of months ago and I'm having the same problems. I was also told by Miele customer support to run a cleaning cycle. I am so disappointed as the machine was very expensive and doesn't do near as half a good job as my old Bosch Classixx 8kg which I had for 19 years.

I did a search and found this forum so I have tried all the solutions here and nothing worked. I then tried using the T-shirt icon so the machine can aadjust the detergent to the weight of the laundry to correspond with the level of soiling I set. I have tried the light, normal and heavy soiling options and it's still the same smelly clothes, towels and bedding (this is the worst). I have also tried the extra water function and washing clothes twice to see if they're ingrained with dirt but I only wear my things once anyway. No joy.

This week I have stopped using Twin Dos liquid detergent and gone back to my old detergent and my laundry is losing the cheesy smell. I have come to the conclusion that the detergent has gone bad. Miele thought I was crazy to say this but since detergents are made of organic substances, I wondered if it could have degraded?

Please can you let me know if you solved the issue and if so, how.
Corby
 
I suspect that the only way to get away from the cheesy smell, is to radically change your detergent. Switch the TwinDos function firmly off.

Try switching to a conventional powder (one which has an oxygen bleach built in, like Persil or Ariel) for a few washes. See if that improves your problem.

Then try manually dosing (i.e. capful in a dosing ball) with conventional shop-bought bottles of liquid detergent, Persil, Ariel Gel, Formil, Almat. See if these bring back the cheesy smell.

I had a couple of bottles of Star Drops 'The Pink Stuff' laundry liquid. Smelled nice in the bottle and in the wash. But when clothes were worn, there was an acidic reek from them. Ghastly.
 
Miele changed the formula of the TwinDos detergents used in Europe anyway. The original ones left a very bitter odour - I didn't like them. The current ones aren't bad at all.

I found my TwinDose dispenser has started to leak though after a few years and I've largely given up on using it as it's just expensive and not all that big an advantage.
 
I purposely bought a model without Twindose

as I prefer to use powder for whites and what ever colour liquid is on offer. I have an old Ariel ball I put the liquid in and powder goes in the drawer which is also able to use capsules sold by Miele but I don't have the need to use the product and so they are still in the box they arrived in .... Its too expensive when you wash a lot I can do unto 4 white washes a week if not more and the twin dose products are just not worth the hassle. YMMV
 
They’re a nice idea, and the refillable cartridges make some sense but it’s not really solving a big issue I’ve ever had.

It just seems like that and the cap dosing are an attempt at developing consumables and a secondary revenue. I found their detergents work pretty well though.

I wonder if the US formulation might be different? I honestly haven’t had any major issue with it at all since they reformulated it. The very early versions of it, a darker blue liquid in a clunkier tank with rubber caps rather than foil, left a very strange scent that appeared days afterwards. It wasn’t a terribly bad smell but it was sharp and very bitter - almost like distilled vinegar. It was like some component of the scent wasn’t staying bound up.

The current version smell fine to me. It’s a fairly mild detergent scent that doesn’t seem to offend my nose but it’s nothing particularly special.

I like their entirely neutral sensitive version. It has almost no scent at all and seems to work a lot better than some of the non bios sold as sensitive detergents here.

I’m quite particular about scents of detergents. I find some of them utterly obnoxious. Ariel Liquid for example always smells like it’s got some element of synthetic banana or something in it. Can’t quite explain it but it’s a VERY specific to Ariel scent. I just don’t like it and there was a version of Ariel powder for a while that used to give me a headache, but Ariel pods smell nice and very fresh to me.

I’ve the same issue in reverse with Unilever Persil. The non bio liquid smells really good. Bio fresh and a bit zingy but not quite as good and then the capsules / pods are not nice at all. I find they leave an odd chemically after scent that reminds me of old detergents and not in a good way.

Some of the Bold versions are OK, if used in low doses and in general Persil liquids are ok.

I actually like some of the Aldi and M&S detergent scents - they’re mild and well balanced. Haven’t tried many other own brands recently.
 
Store brand detergents

It can be quite annoying when a store changes supplier. And some of the detergents can and do smell vile.

I bought a pack of the new Lidl dishwasher pods (these had a diagonal pouch of powder, with two small triangles of liquid in the opposite diagonal). The smell from inside the pack is 'mouldy damp cloth under the sink'! The wash though, and afterwards is okay, but a bit perfumed.

I noticed that the very latest Lidl version now has the powder in a 'T' shape, with the liquid components either side of the main spine of the 'T'. The barcode changed too. Possibly a different supplier.

And the rinse aid now seems to be from Chemolux/McBride. Probably due to the supply chain problems apparently everywhere these days.
 
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