The evolution of "Rinse and Hold", Rinse Only on dishwashers

[verizonbear]

Question for all of you experts

Was the term "rinse and hold" trademarked by Hobart ?

Also, historically Rinse and Hold, Rinse Only, was only one rinse and then a drain, modern dishwashers do 2 rinses, to me that seems counter intuitive with the emphasis on water savings

 

[launderess]

Two Rinses For "Rinse & Hold"

If they used the proper amount of water in the first place only one would be required IMHO.

 

[jerrod6]

My  Miele DW from 2006 when using the Sensor or Ecomony cycles  may do three rinses(but not that often)for a heavily soiled load containing grease, pasta, starch, or if the second rinse contains too much suds; but that was 2006...not today's modern appliances.

 

[washer111]

Rinse & Hold

This cycle was supposed to be for bad soiled dishes you wanted to get some strains off whilst they were still moist - or, you could call it pre-rinsing the dishes with LESS water than if each was manually pre-rinsed.

The "Hold" part I think meant that the dishes were being "held" for a full cycle at a later time, but if you kept the door shut/latched, then the dishes would remain "moist" and so heavier stains would be easier to remove come the full wash time.

Our DD (and our old Dishlex) do one Rinse for this cycle. Machines such as the GE Potscrubber 1200 and 2800 do 2 rinses - possibly to do with the self-clean filter or "flushing" away the dirty 100%. That, or the machine does a "purge fill" to bring some warm water to the machine before actually "rinsing"

 

[arbilab]

My ~1985 GE is 2 fills. It says "rinse only" rather than "rinse hold". It also says to switch heated dry off.

 

[frigilux]

I've only used it once or twice, but I'm pretty sure my LG's rinse/hold has only one water fill. It's about 15 minutes long, as each rack gets about 6 minutes of spray action.

 

[mark_wpduet]

Good Question

I personally never used that cycle, but I assumed that it was for dishes that were badly soiled, but not yet ready to be washed, so it just runs a rinse cycle with no detergent and then you can run the full cycle later. But in my case, it's always three days later, since it takes about three days for my dishwasher have a full load, so I've never used it. On my WP tall tub, I think it's called "rinse only" and it is about 15 minutes long and one fill of water. I did use it once to see what it would do a long time ago.

 

[countryguy]

Since I live alone, I only run the dishwasher every 2, 3 or 4 days depending on how much I've been cooking.  When I have a casserole dish that has baked on crud, but I'm not going to run the dishwasher on a full cycle that day, I use rinse & hold - it kind of acts like a soak cycle.

 

Gary

 

[maytagbear]

Most of my dishwashers

have been portable/convertibles, so to me, "rinse and hold" has just struck me as being rather nonsensical--pushing the machine to the sink, running the cycle, pushing it back to storage, and then pushing it back to the sink. However, it can be very useful for a 3 or 4 person family, when two meals are eaten at home.

Instead of rinse and hold, I just run the longest, hottest cycle- seems to come out even that way.

Lawrence/Maytagbear

 

[philr]

I tried the RINSE & HOLD cycle on my 1974 Frigidaire Custom Deluxe dishwasher and I think the only thing the switch does is to stop the heating element from working.

The instructions say to advance the timer to rinse (so it does only one rinse) it can be also used for "PRE-WASH & HOLD", just by adding detergent in the dispenser #1 (which has no door).

It's possible to operate the dishwasher a full cycle on RINSE & HOLD but I'm guessing it's not recommended because the heater is off during the wash cycles too...

 

[passatdoc]

Our 1961 Kitchen Aid KDS Superba DW had three cycles:

Rinse and Hold (white button-right)
Normal (green button-center)
Utility/Pots-Pans (yellow button-left)

(image courtesy of fan-0-quality's 5/2011 thread)

From ads I've seen on this site, KA offered two lower end models that did not have the three cycles, only the Superba had three cycles (and thus Rinse and Hold). I do not know if Rinse And Hold was offered prior to the debut of the Superba. We never used Utility cycle because my mom lost the owner manual and we didn't know what would happen if the button were pressed (World War 3??). From ads I've seen on this site, Utility was an intensive wash system followed by NO heated drying. Not exactly the same as Pots/Pans today, though Bosch's PowerScrubPlus does more or less the same thing and there is no heated drying (my Bosch has no heated drying on any cycle). The KA did not have a steel tub, it was porcelain, so the current system whereby water evaporates off dishes and utensils and condenses on the tub sides (after a high temp final rinse) did not exist then in the porcelain tub era.

As a family of four, we would usually fill the DW in a 24 hour period, but sometimes the DW was full before dinner and ran during dinner. After dinner, the DW was unloaded (the chore for my sister and me, starting from the age of six) and then loaded with the dinner dishes. Since we didn't fill the DW with the dishes from that meal, the DW would not be run until the next day, so we'd use Rinse and Hold. Our basic rule of thumb was: if the DW would be run later the same day, no Rinse and Hold. If DW was to be run the next day or later, then we'd use Rinse and Hold.

Note: all of the DWs I owned prior to my 2001 Bosch were POS and Rinse/Hold was imperative, otherwise dishes would not come clean if DW was not run daily. When I purchased the Bosch, the particular model (Integra Design, with door edge controls) had been introduced only the week before. THere were no floor models, and I had to order from a dealer catalog. The salesman made a mistake: there were TWO BOL models, both with PowerScrubPlus and Normal cycles, but the third cycle differed. One had Rinse and Hold, the other had Quick Wash. I "thought" I was ordering the DW with Rinse and Hold, but the model with Quick Wash was delivered. I called the dealer and said there was a mistake, they checked the specs and agreed that they didn't realize that there were two BOL models with one difference in the third cycle. He suggested I try the machine, and if I didn't like it, he would exchange it for the other BOL model.

Turns out I was better off with the Quick Wash. The Bosch cleans so well that there is no need for Rinse/Hold. I can have a week's collection of dishes and glasses and they still come out clean on Normal cycle. The poor performance of prior DWs had conditioned me to use Rinse/Hold on a daily basis if I didn't have a full DW. The Quick Wash cycle, now sold by many companies as a "Party" cycle, can wash lightly soiled dishes (say, if you have people over for coffee and cake) in half an hour. It can't handle dried-on or baked-on food, but is ok on light soil. Since the Bosch does such a great job on Normal cycle, Rinse/Hold is more or less obsolete.

 

[DADoES]

 
We used Rinse/Hold at first on our KDI-17a, because having a dishwasher was a new experience and using the array of cycles as intended was necessary.  We learned soon enough to avoid it because Rinse/Hold caused more odor from standing/wet dirty dishes than if it was NOT used.

IIRC, the KDI-17 sequence was:
1 min half-fill (line purge)
1 min drain
2 mins fill with circulation
1 min circulation
2 mins pause (which is where the soak period would be on the Soak Cycle but the pulse-delay timer did not engage on Rinse/Hold)
1 min drain
Remainder of timer sequences ran out at normal time with no further washing/rinsing/drying action, or the timer could be advanced manually to Off.

I have not used rinse/hold on any of my dishwashers since that initial experience.

 

[jerrod6]

Agree with Dadoes.  My Dw does have a rinse only cycle.  It is designed to rinse current dishes you have when you don't have enough for a full load.  My guess it that the thought was that you had breakfast and lunch, did the rinse/hold, then did the full cycle after dinner.  Of course that was 1960's thinking about typical family life.

 

I've tried the rinse only cycle(named Prewash on my machine because I have the language set to UK English) but found that while it does leave the dishes wet, it also leaves the inside of the machine smelly and slimy especially since I only run the DW every other day.  Beyond that without using rinse/hold the dishes get just as clean when I wash them so why waste 1.06 gallons of water doing this rinse/hold thing.

 

 

 

[rolls_rapide]

Instead of rinse and hold, I just run the longest, hottest c

Snap!

I found that "Rinse & Hold", or "Pre-rinse", simply causes a smelly stagnant soup to develop, with particulates sprayed everywhere. So I just load the machine as I go and when full, run the "Auto Superwash". Less hassle all round.

 

[launderess]

Have Never Bothered With "Rinse & Hold"

Find even several day old dishes that have been sat sitting in the DW come clean with proper dosage of modern detergents. Not the STPP free stuff on the shelves today as one is still using old formula Cascade powder which has enough of the stuff to do the job.

Why on earth would anyone wish to spray a mixture of water and food oils/soils/goo around a dw then allow it to sit for several hours has always been beyond me. If something is that badly soiled and or one is worried about allowing it to sit for whatever period of time it takes to fill up the dw, go ahead and pre-rinse the thing in sink.

 

[combo52]

Rinse and Hold

I also have seldom used the R&H cycle on my DWs for many of the a fore mentioned reasons.
1 Even if not rinsed the dishes come perfectly clean anyway when the full cycle is run.

2 Kitchenaid always had a terrible R&H cycle as it was just one quick rinse and as mentioned by others it made the whole machine smell worse in a days time if used.
My WP DW on the other hand does two full water changes for its R&H cycle and does such a good job that everyone in the household thinks the dishes in the machine are clean and they start using them, LOL.

 

[bajaespuma]

I'm still interested in your original question, who first came up with it and when? Was it even patent-able? 

 

Our TOL 1961 GE dishwasher didn't have it in its 4 cycle line-up and I remember first seeing it on my Aunt Grace's KDS-12 in the early sixties. Since my Mother was one of those who hand washed everything BEFORE putting it in the machine, she wouldn't have bothered. I don't use it that much except when I'm baking; I can throw all of the pieces, some of which aren't safe for long periods in the machine at high water temps and get everything acceptably clean. With two fills I can put a little detergent in and pretend I'm using my high-temp fast warewasher at work. I find it useful and I suspect people with families that fed everyone for breakfast, lunch and dinner and had a fairly consistent daily dishwasher run after all the daily dishes were in, would have used this feature.

 

You know me, the more buttons to push, the better.

 

 

 

 

[mrcleanjeans]

The Utility-Utensil Cycle on the KD-14 series was a regular wash cycle,followed by a 5 minute heated dry cycle. Any crust left in the pots and pans,it was said,were at least softened so you could wipe the pots clean with a paper towel instead of hand scrubbing them. The 5 minute dry was just enough to dry the pots and pans without drying on the leftover soils on them.

 

[passatdoc]

Thanks for the explanation. I guess then that it was not a high powered "potscrubber" cycle as they exist today.

For reasons mentioned above (Mom misplaced the user guide) we never used Utility, only Normal cycle and---if there was not a full load to run after dinner---Rinse/Hold. If there wasn't room for pots and pans, they were washed in the sink. If there was room, they were prerinsed/scraped (but not washed) and Normal cycle got them clean. If something was really baked on, we didn't even try to put it in the DW and just washed by hand in the sink.

What I recall for our family of four was that we could fill the DW daily with just dishes/glasses/utensils and that there often wasn't room for pots and pans. On weekends, when we might not eat three meals at home (sports activitie for the kids, running errands and thus eating on the go like at a coffee shop), then there was more room for pots/pans because we didn't have three full meals worth of plates and glasses. This was still only the 1960s but my sister and I were pretty much "scheduled" all weekend: sports, cultural stuff, Boy Scouts/Girl Scouts, Sunday School, you name it. So compared to weekdays, we often were not home for three meals per day on weekends.