pre rinsing dishes

[DADoES]

I don't remember what was the brand (Dawn or Palmolive, probably), but four or five years ago on a nocturnal forage through the kitchen, I grabbed a bottle of dishwashing liquid off the sink and took a swig of it. It was N-A-S-T-Y. Talk about instant awake! And mental anxiety for the rest of the night!

 

[toggleswitch]

Just don't leave any Draino near the hot water bottle, ok?

 

[maytagbear]

Dishwashing liquid

generally (generally!) will only give a person the "green apple quickstep," and nothing worse. Of course, that may be different, now that there are new additives.

L/Mb

 

[exploder3211]

Mine was only because i wanted some water and put it in a cup with dawn in it... I also drank Palmolive when i was a kid.. Yuckk

 

[washoholic]

Cold water hitting hot dishes???????

mrx, that's interesting that your dishwasher uses cold water for some of the rinses. One would think that the cold water hitting the dishes after the hot wash would cause glasses to break. Has anyone ever experienced this?

My LG can be connected to the standard hot water line (Used in most US homes) or cold water line. Mine is hooked to the hot, but I turned off the water heater and used all of the hot water (Showers/washing clothes) then ran a few loads to test. The first load was washed using Cascade Shine Shield powdered detergent and the load came out clean. The second load was washed using Cascade Shine Shield 2 in 1 action pacs with the power of dawn (Blue & white), and I noticed that some of the plates had this strange sticky residue, but everything was clean. There was also a strange film, but only in places on the inside of the stainless steel interior. I wonder if the action pacs don’t work so well with the cold rinses. What do you think?

~Jeff

 

[DADoES]

Jeff, I routinely have a cold prewash and cold rinses with my DishDrawer. Nothing broken thus far. The final rinse is always the hottest phase of the cycle, getting up to 163°F on Heavy wash. Main wash is next-hottest, which is followed by one or more cold rinses before the final.

I've sometimes run the sink faucet until the water runs warm for the prewash but that doesn't appear to make any difference on cleaning performance.

 

[logixx]

Dishwashing liquid? No. Dog food? Yes... All I can say is: it doesn't taste AS bad as it smells.

As far as DW detergent goes: I've tried other brands but keep going back to Henkel's "Somat" powder. Just "Simply the Best"

I don't know about all of Europe but at least here almost every DW is hooked up to cold water, thus the interim rinse is always cold (at least the very beginning of it as the hot dishes heat the water up pretty fast).

The only exception are some BSH dishwashers, which have a built-in heat exchanger that preheats the rinse water.

Alex

 

[rp2813]

DW's with water heating feature

I run the sink faucet also to make sure the hottest possible water goes into the DW. My KA says right on the front that it has "automatic water heating" but I'm guessing that doesn't apply to all cycles. I can open it up during a wash sometimes and get blasted by steam, but I can open it up during other cycles and the water doesn't even seem to be as hot as what comes out of the sink faucet.

Anybody know more about this? Just going from memory here but the model is something like KUDT220 from 1990.

 

[frigilux]

The water in first fill or two gets cooled by the cold dishes in the machine. The third fill on many machines is the main wash, which usually gets the booster treatment; hence the steam when you open the door.

Most owner's manuals still recommend running the closest hot water faucet until the water reaches its highest temp, then starting the dishwasher. Of course, this adds a couple of gallons water usage each time you run the machine.

My '05 Maytag uses about 10 gallons for the Normal Cycle, which is more than most new machines use. I think the average is now around 7-8 gallons for a normal cycle.

 

[brisnat81]

8gallons is 30L

That is a lot of water comparatively.

Most machines in AU now use between 10 and 25L or 2.5 to 6.5gals

If I scrape properly, without pre-rinsing, my Miele uses 13L for a full cycle. That gets me an auto 65deg C wash, rinse, 65degC rinse.

If I fill the machine with Gravy and other gunk, the standard auto wash, can do 2 pre-wash rinses, 65deg main wash, 2 interim rinses and a 65deg final rinse for about 22L.

On Average, I get a prewash, mainwash, cold interim rinse, heated rinse.

So I can get all the water changes of an old fashion DW, but still acheive a 4star water rating, and have clean dishes in 1:30 if you air dry.

There have only been cold fill dishwashers in AU since the 90's when the water consumption finally dropped enough, to make it time effective to heat the water. If I'm washing really delicate stuff, I use the gentle program which drops the wash temp down to 35-45C depending on the level of soil. At those temps there is little chance of thermal shock.

 

[48bencix]

Ultrawash

I have a Kenmore plastic dishwasher probably from around 2001 also, but it has the Ultrawash Module, which filters the water as it is pumped through the spray arms (three) and is self-cleaning. I don't enjoy the thought of cleaning the filter which I belive is common in European design machines.

The main cycle has two washes with detergent for each, and one rinse. I think it takes about 45 minutes. And is not designed really for enzyme products. This wash cycle takes just about 5 gallons of hot water.

So, eventhought this dishwasher washes very well with no pre-rinsing, I do pre-rinse. Then I use detergent from the $.99 store with clorine and phosphates. I also use the water heat option and air dry. I believe that the hot water and clorine will produce truly sanitary and germ free dishes.

When I pre-rinse, I try to use as little as water as possible, I just don't like the thought of all of that gunk being sprayed around in there, eventhough it is filtered.

As a partial concession to conservation, I use air dry option, and of course have to wipe off the bottoms of the cups and glasses.

Martin

 

[gadgetgary]

I just don't like the thought of all of that gunk being

I agree. I have a problem with food particles in the bottom of the DW. I lightly(and I mean lightly) rinse off the large food particles before loading. It usually takes a few days to fill the DW.

Note to Bob(appnut):
I have tried using the Light/China cycle on my KA and it performs just fine.

And now, I am actually putting pots and pans in my DW.

 

[whirlcool]

Our absolute BOL 12 year old Kenmore (also sold as a GE unit for $179.95 in a LOT of places and also sold under various brand names) only has two options. Heated Dry and Cold Dry. The dial just says Start & Rinse. But it does get the dishes clean. It doesn't have a spray arm at the top, and a few of our tea mugs do have recessed bottoms, but we just open it up at the end of the cycle and shake over the sink. All "captured water" & gunk come off.
But in all fairness, the hot water tank is only about 10 feet away from the unit and we DO run the hot water tap for about 30 seconds or so to ensure hot water into the unit before starting it. We use either the Wal Mart DW detergent or Cascade Fresh Scent (not the enzyme kind).

 

[petek]

Our new house back in Calgary came with that BOL GE. I hated it, yes hated it. LOL. It was noisy, to me, and left gunk on the dishes. We tossed it shortly and I splurged for a Miele. Oh how I miss that machine, virtually noiseless and it could clean anything.

 

[toggleswitch]

Stopped pre-rinsing when I got a GE DW for the basement. (There were no sinks down there when I first bought the house.) The goods came out fabulous.

Now I dont pre-rinse when using the KA upstairs, either. I I do use "Rinse only" every night though.

 

[whirlcool]

Oh, I did forget to mention that the BOL GE does wake the dead when running! It is noisier than anything else I have ever heard.
But since it is on the other side of the house, we only turn it on when we go to bed.

 

[48bencix]

BOL

Before I got my Kenmore Ultrawash, I had a Hotpoint BOL, probably one of the machines that had that recall problem. Had I known about it I could have gotten some money or a coupon to get a new one. Anyway I put it to the curb when it started leaking out the front of the door! I don't know what the heck was wrong but water would run down the front of the door on to the floor.

That machine had two washes, both with detergent, and 4 rinses I think. Absolutely no filtering, and the bottoms of the cups and glasses were always dirty, and I pre-rinsed with that POS too. And it was very noisy "wake the dead when running". That is one of the nice things about the Kenmore, I guess it has about $.50 more of fiberglass around the tub, but it makes a big difference.

I do also run the hot water at the sink for a few seconds to make sure the hottest water go into the machine, however since the water heater is set to 130 degrees (55 c), I do use the heated water option, which raises it to 160 degrees (71 c) I believe.

Martin

 

[MrX]

Glasses and other items have never cracked in any dishwasher I've owned (or used) and they've all had cold interim rinses and prewash.

It seems to work quite well as a process.

And, to be honest, I've never really found cleaning the filter that big a deal. It's partially self-cleaning in a European dishwasher.
The wash water is constantly filtered during the wash btw, removing small particles. If they're small enough, they'll be flushed out through the drain pump when the machine empties.
The filter will only really have large chunks of food remaining (if any). It takes all of about 3 seconds to clear out. Just rinse it under a fast flowing tap in the sink.

 

[cvillewasherbo]

BOL GE

I live in an apartment complex that is around 25-30 years old. It has BOL old GE appliances. The dishwasher has one dial the kind that has a part in the middle that sticks out (wish I could show a pic). Above the timer dial it says "Two Cycle Sound Insulated." That's a laugh. The second cycle is if you turn the timer knob a little further to where it says short cycle which leaves out the first wash.

I don't rinse anything, and sometimes it will take 3-4 days before I run it. Last time I had a plate with egg yolk all over it, and that plate sat on the counter for about 4 days before I put it in the machine. I have really hot water and let it run first. I use cascade complete or the electrasol equivalent and fill both cups. The plate with the egg came out without a spec. I don't have trouble with my coffee mugs and glasses because I tilt them when loading.

Even though I hate that POS, and it's very noisy, I have to say that everything comes out spotless everytime.
Courtney
Waynesboro VA

 

[appnut]

Courtney, I am sure you realize GE had a major presence in Waynesboro because of the old computer printer division manufacturing facility there (now known as Genicom). I have often wondered just how many filter-flo and potscrubber machines are there lurking about in homes.