Post Cycle Dishwasher Rituals?

[murando531]

Typically, like many have said, I prop the door open a few inches as soon as I notice the Clean light, and it either sits overnight and I'll unload it the next day, or as most have pointed out, within an hour everything is dry and ready to put away. I always have a dish drainer by the sink because of handwashing the large cookware and large utensils I use every time I cook, so any of the plastic lids and such that will have bits of water caught, I'll just shake them in the sink and pop them over into the drainer. Before I start cooking the next meal, I always put away anything that is clean to have an empty work space, and by that time it's all dry as a bone.

Between the two stainless models I've had, versus the PowerClean and the 540 I have in currently, I do notice a huge difference in the drying performance of the stainless vent-less WP design. If I ever forgot with those machines to pop the door open, typically everything would be dry aside from the nooks and crannies of the plastics. And that's with me never using heated dry with any dishwasher I've had. There would be a little moisture condensed on the door and sidewalls, but the dishes themselves would be satisfactorily dry.

 

[mark_wpduet]

I've noticed that too

with my Maytag stainless. My ritual is as soon as the machine's clean light is on I open door, shake racks, and sometimes I'll unload a couple hours later or next day. But there are times that I've gone to bed with the dishwasher running and can't do that & it ends up staying closed over night and the next day, with no dry cycle, the dishes are pretty dry considering the machine was closed the entire night. Not perfectly dry, but dry enough to get a paper towel to get a couple of wet spots and put them away.

 

[iej]

I have to say I love the auto-open door on my Miele. It makes a huge different to the residual heat drying to have the door ajar when the cycle’s finished and it even gently blows air over the top to avoid steam condensing on the countertop.

Overall, I don’t think I do anything in particular with my dishwasher, although I would say I’ve found the Miele tablets a waste of time, they don’t seem to shift tomato stains from plastics, including the diwasher’s own plastic components. I’ve found Finish (power ball or quantum), or Sun (Unilever, and I don’t think it’s available in the UK) absolutely excellent and generally Fairy (same as Cascade in the US) is effective but WAY WAY too foamy.

I wouldn’t write off the Miele detergent range though - the TwinDos laundry detergent is giving me excellent results and it’s not that expensive relative to Ariel / Persil here anyway. The price of the cartridges actually dropped and Miele’s wool detergent is phenomenally good. I wouldn’t use anything else, but the dishwasher tablets are far from amazing.