No contest on dishwashing pods

[washman]

As noted before, my trusty water guzzling Kitchenaid gave up the ghost and was replaced by an eco-sanctioned GE.

GE both in the owners manual and stamped on the grey plastic inside panel recommended Cascade pods. First time I ever saw a dishwasher that literally mandated a specific brand of detergent.

That being said, over the last 6 months I used:

Finish Powder
Finish powerball tabs, free and clear
Ajax from Dollah General
Target store brand
Cascade Platinum

The most costly of the above mentioned bunch is, drum roll, Cascade. And again, I learned that more often than not, you DO get what you pay for.

In summary, Cascade in combination with my slightly hard water and the design of the GE, wins hands down. None of the other 3 could remove stuck on pasta sauce. None of the other 3 could take down dried egg yolk. And none of the other 3 could clean an ashtray.
While the Cascade cannot hold a candle to the phosphate era, out of all the ones I used, it performed best.

The Ajax, sourced from Canada, left dried pasta sauce on flatware that took 3 additional washings to remove.
Target brand skipped over egg yolk and left it mostly intact as in still stuck on the darn plate.
Finish did reasonably well but could not handle any au gratin OR dried mustard.

These are the most noted deficiencies I found.

Criteria:
I run my dishwasher once, perhaps twice weekly. I have the incoming water temp at around 135. I use the heated wash, steam, and heated dry. I do not scrape or rinse ANYTHING. Only the largest chunks get tossed in the dustbin. Sometimes the load will sit for 5-6 days before run. I clean the filter each time before use, even if it looks mostly okay to be fair to all the brands.

 

[petek]

The Finish Power ball free and clear you used though I believe are the new eco friendly ones lacking in the chemicals of Cascade and regular finish powerballs. .. You should try the regular Finish Power Balls or the Finish Quantum powerballs for a good comparison. I get great results with them, as good as with the Cascade ones.

 

[frigilux]

Ben-- I'm sure GE specifies Cascade pods due to a promotional tie-in. Having said that, I use Cascade Platinum pacs with excellent results in my GE (very soft water). As I've mentioned elsewhere, the cycles seem custom-made for pod/pac use. The dispenser is also obviously made to cradle a pod. Bosch machines specify Finish Quantum pacs---again, a promotional tie-in, undoubtedly.

I run the dishwasher once or twice a day unless I'm doing a lot of cooking and/or having guests, in which case it may run from morning 'til night, one load after another. I use the half load option (usually upper rack) quite often, as I don't like to leave dirty dishes in the machine more than a day.

The cylindrical filter gets a quick spray-off once or twice a week. Takes only a few seconds with a sink sprayer. There's usually very little accumulation on it, but I like a clean filter. Haven't had to remove the large, flat filter on the floor of the dishwasher in the six months I've had the machine.

Thanks for sharing your findings with the various detergents. Not surprised the Cascade pods took the checkered flag!

ASIDE: My sister and brother-in-law just moved into a new condo. The previous owner left a poorly cared-for Whirlpool TL pair behind. The washer is disgustingly crusty and sounds like it's in its death throes. I'm surprising her with a new Speed Queen 542 washer and matching dryer for her birthday in July. She likes my front-loader pair, but I think she'll be happier with a traditional top-loader. She's always had a top-loader, and the long cycle times on new front-loaders would probably annoy her.

 

[joe_in_philly]

Maybe there is something wrong with your GE dishwasher. How can any detergent not get dried on pasta sauce off?

 

[MikeS]

Detergent Recommendations

GE is not the only dishwasher maker to recommend a specific detergent. My Bosch has stickers on the edge of the door recommending Finish. As it happens, I have used both Finish Powerball Tabs (regular and free and clear) and Cascade All-In-1. Both work just fine in my machine, even with the dirtiest loads. But I use Finish, because I can get a box of 110 tabs at Costco for less than 12 dollars when they go on sale. As for the cheaper detergent tabs and pods, I found you indeed get what you pay for.

 

[murando531]

I've found that Cascade Complete and Platinum do well with people who have very little plastic ware. My household, on the other hand, uses plenty of both glass and plastic, the plastic mostly being in cups, since they sweat less with cold liquid, and it puts less wear and tear on our glasses that we use when people are over. Cascade does great on everything BUT plastic, because while it gets clean, it always has a chalky filmy residue. You can't see it but you can instantly feel it. I've tried using them when the rinse aid dispenser went dry, but then all the dishes just stay wet, and when they dried the residue was more localized to spots. Finish Powerball tabs and even Walmart's Great Value pods work wonders. The Maytag I have usually does one wash and two rinses with a decent amount of soil, and only uses about 6 gallons, but it fills with about 2 gallons each time, so I'd guess that the Finish tabs work better even when more water is used per fill, considering that eco-machines use barely a gallon each time. So far with this dishwasher that's been the only less than perfect results I've experienced in a year's time.

 

[jerrod6]

I use just about everything and get equal results except for when using powders with heavy soiled loads.   I did note that there is a comparison between Cascade Platinum and Finish powerball tabs. The two are not the same type of thing.  The Platinum is a multi compartment pac that can better dispense detergent ingredients at the correct time so that one doesn't cancel out the other.  The powerball tabs are a multi tablet without that capability. Another try might be be Finish Quantum which is a direct technology comparison with Cascade Platinum pacs.

 

In the end use what gets the job done the best, at the price you like.

 

[frigilux]

Cascade Platinum pacs, as advertised, keep the stainless steel interior bright and shiny. I also have Cascade Complete pacs in the house, which get used on light loads. If consecutive loads are run with Complete pacs, you can really see the difference in the shine of the stainless steel.

So, I wonder what special chemical ingredient makes the Platinum pac stand out?

 

[mark_wpduet]

Question:

I got a sample once of Finish Quantum, and although it did a GREAT job, you could hear the dishwasher struggling with all of the foam it caused, even with hard water. Others said the same thing. Finsih powerball doesn't do this.......Does the Cascade Platinum foam like Quantum? I actually have a sample pack of Cascade Platinum that came with my dishwasher, but I haven't used them yet. I got a 110 ct powerball for 11.50 at Costco, and a huge 32 oz bottle of Jet Dry for 3.00 just this past week.

 

[frigilux]

Mark-- I've opened my GE several times during the main wash to see if suds were evident (using Cascade Platinum or Cascade Complete pods). No suds!

I recall finding suds back when I had the LG and was using Finish Powerballs. You mentioned the Powerballs aren't a sudsing problem for you; however, my water is very soft. Maybe the LG sprayed with more power, causing more suds.

I don't miss having to unwrap the Powerballs. The Cascade pacs have no wrapping.[this post was last edited: 6/27/2014-10:18]

 

[petek]

Never had any foaming issues with Quantum tabs here nor any other brand

 

[washman]

The finish tablets

suds up big time and I have slightly hard water.

Forgot to mention, the Finish powder did not even make it all the way out of the dispenser. Over half remained in there, a hardened reminder of why I detest eco-sanctioned machines that force me to buy more expensive pods when back in the day, plain old powder did the job.

 

[washer111]

"Cascade Pacs have no wrapping"

 

Having used the "Fairy" equivalent, I must honestly say this was a downside to the longevity of the pods. If any moisture reaches them, then the self-dissolving wrapper breaches, releasing some of the detergent into the powder or breaching other pods in the process - which can wreck the detergent.

Thankfully, even though this happened to me, the detergent still worked nicely - although the container was quite a mess. 

 

I haven't found the Finish Quantum to be overly sudsing, and I have mechanically softened water. Both seem to clean equally well - although I miss the "Metal Shine" ingredient - since it REALLY did work. 

We have one stainless saucer used for reheating food and milk for coffee, which is probably the only thing that never gets 100% clean in the dishwasher. The Platinum pacs made it shine like new again!

 

Unfortunately, I don't have any good photos documenting this, otherwise I'd post them here!

 

[jerrod6]

I've always thought the difference causing excessive sudsing was due to soft or hard water, but I am starting to think it might be more than that.  My water hardness is currently 13 grains per gallon but sometimes in the winter it is 5 grains. My DW has a water softener so I don't know what it is softening the water to.  I can't tell any difference in sound when using finish powder, Cascade anything or Finish quantum or powerball tabs, so  does any one know what other differences exist in water that could be causing sudsing problems?  

 

[joe_in_philly]

Perhaps it has to do with how much soil is in the load. I have experienced sudsing with finish quantum when using the power scrub cycle. That cycle on my dishwasher does a heated prerinse and flush at a minimum, so I imagine there isn't much soil left by the time the wash starts with fresh water. I just assume it is a combination of the hot wash (155F) and little soil that resulted in the foaming.

 

[jerrod6]

Joe 

 

I think you and I are using water from the same treatment plant so it can't be the water.  I just don't think I have ever noticed sudsing, but have to honestly say I've never opened the machine to check either.  But like you say it might be lack of soil.  My poor Dw never gets a load that is not full of soil.