What constitutes a good rinse?

[newwave1]

I thought i would start a thread that i'm interested in hearing everyones different opinions on.

What do you think makes for the best rinse possible. My favourite part of a cycle is the rinse, so i'm intregued into everyones different opinions.

I have a hoover logic which is a real waterhog it does 3 high level rinses with a spin after the first and 2nd rinse at 500rpm.

The high quantity of water twined with the slow spins makes for a very good result. However....I feel it could be better. i.e faster spins inbetween rinses.

What does make sense to me is my AEG model dating back from 2003.

Standardly it does 3 rinses with a recirculatory jet with timesaver pressed it does 2.

The 3 rinses are; a 900rpm spin after the wash, and 3 low level rinses with 1200rpm spins after each rinse.

IF it is aload of towels it will fill and distribute at the same time and spin the load 3 times at 250rpm to spin the soap out.I find this a fairly effective way with low water levels. and after its done the spins it turns at distribution speed in both directions until the drain.

I find that the recirculatory jet is more of a hinderence to the rinse result as it whips suds up and dumps residue onto rinsed clothes when it begins to recirculate for the next rinse.

With timesaver it does 2 high rinses with a 900rpm spin after the wash and a 1200rpm spin after the 1st rinse.

With super rinse pressed. It does 5 rinses without timesaver and 4 with timesaver. However it doesnt spin until after the 3rd rinse which is only at 400rpm so to me the rinse result will be the same at the end. This really doesn't make sense to me. Surely it would make sense to keep the high spins inbetween for an even better result.

There are many factors that i feel need to be considered to get a true rinse result.

drum speed, water level, spins, jets.

I just wondered if any of you guys would like to throw your opinions in. Are you to fussed about rinsing? What sort of things do you think make a good rinse?

I'd like it if you guys would take the time to reply to this one

Attached is a picture of my hoover rinsing

 

[mattywashboy]

okay, my 'perfect' rinse is high water levels and fats spins in between. I liked the old system of 4 rinses because clothes did come out fresh. My front load whirlpool used to rinse in hi water levels but did not do long fast spins in between, two short bursts at 600 rpm and then fill, not really a great rinse. Because i had the drain hose hooked over the sink, i could monitor the amount of suds in the final drain and sadly it was more often than not, still quite full of suds. The problem with washers nowadays is they focus on being water efficient and energy efficient, i think they should have just stuck the old way and actually got clothes clean without arsing around monitoring water levels and adusting cycle times blah blah. I know these modern day machines are only trying to save us some time and money but i would much rather pay to have clean, well rinsed, well spun clothes.
So i believe, 4 rinses, all at a high level, power distributes same as hoover and hotties, that will solve the OOB problems we have, fast spins in between rinses at a decent length. I believe that would produce a good result. Maybe also they could think about raising the drum speed during rinse cycles.
Matt

 

[robm]

Hello Darren

I agree with Matt (Hello Matt). I think the 4 rinses at a high level was always good. The only thing that concerns me about the fast spins inbetween is the creasing. I don't think a fast spin whilst clothes are warm is a good idea at all.

Rob

 

[peterh770]

Three rinses if conditioner is not used, four rinses if conditioner is used. All high level to get good dilution. Some suds -- thin bubbles more like -- are completely acceptable to me in the last rinse as long as the water is crystal clear. I wish I could program my Miele to do warm rinsing because doing cotton loads, warm rinsing seems to do much better (at least in a toploader), and woolens should be rinsed in the same temp as they are washed.

As for the interim spins, I use the Delicate and Perm Press cycles frequently and they don't spin between rinses. While clothes come out smelling a bit more of the detergent used in these cycles, the rinse water come the final rinse is nice and clear. However, for heavy cottons (T-shirts, underwear, socks, towels), interim spins are very necessary.

 

[hoovermatic]

Having a h-axis top load machine I am not able to tell how well things are rinsed until I take them out but I can instantly tell if there is that awful sticky feel to the clothes and they 'squeak' as they are unraveled, not sure 'squeak' is the right word but I know what I mean. I have always found the Hotpoint TL to be very good at rinsing and only have a problem if I overdose the detergent. I recently invested in some Dryer Balls and have stopped using softener in some washes to see if they work and as a result have selected the extra rinse to make sure the suds are gone. On the whole I am quite impressed with them.

 

[toggleswitch]

~As for the interim spins, I use the Delicate and Perm Press cycles frequently and they don't spin between rinses.

I don't have lingerie or plastic clothing so I don't use these cycles. Similarly, I like a spin between each rinse. My feeling is that a interim spins rid clothing of residues embedeed in fibers.

Gotta try warm rinses. Never saw a discernable difference to date.

 

[hotpointwf220]

Rinse

Well my washer has an ok level for rinsing but the problem is when the machine stops filling it will or may drain and distribute for a spin in about 10-20 seconds. So I have to fill extra water in myself, risking that it will spin with half the water in. I just red the reviews of my machine and I'm not supprised 1 out of 5 rating, Well done Hotpoint/Indesit/Ariston.

 

[maytagbear]

I usually just

use the sequence in my Maytag TL... spray, deep, spray. Sometimes I'll poke the "Extra Rinse" button, and have a second deep rinse, but not often.

I do admit that I preferred the WP belt drive sequence of 4 spray, deep, 4 spray, but oh well.

The only time I had any trouble with rinsing was when I used too much oxygen powder and a single rinse. Rash city! So, when I use an oxygen powder in the wash, I always use a second rinse.

Lawrence/Maytagbear

 

[brisnat81]

3 Low level rinses does it for me

I have my Miele programmed for Water Plus (Sensitive) to equal an extra low level rinse. This gives me 1200rpm spins between each stage, and a 1800RPM spin after the third rinse.

I usually find watery bubbles in the final rinse water, but the water is clear. I've tried 2 high level rinses and wasnt happy, it would seem that its the extra spin that make the difference.

My 30yo Miele does 5 rinses in a cottons cycle, however there is no spin between wash and the first rinse. This seems to be to avoid suds locks, as the times I've tried to get a spin after wash it never gets up to speed. After the first rinse it has a burst spin, and then spins between all of the others. The standard water level in this machine is 1" up the glass and yet with all that water I dont find that it rinse particularily well, it is very easy to end up with cloudy water after the final rinse if you're not carefull with dosing.

For me, it is the quality of the interim spins that is important.

 

[toggleswitch]

~The only time I had any trouble with rinsing was when I used too much oxygen powder and a single rinse. Rash city! So, when I use an oxygen powder in the wash, I always use a second rinse.

THANK YOU! Seriously. I have been hitting the Oxy-clean heavily lately and I'm one big itch! False alarm. (That Vag-i-sil is expensive and messy as hell.)

 

[lavamat_jon]

My view...

...is that the quality of rinsing is definitely in the interim spin. I often flick between default and water plus rinsing on the Miele, but I've found that on most loads (unless you use P&G tablets, then they need all the rinsing you can get) that 2 rinses are ideal, and even if softener isn't used the final rinse is always clear with my main daily driver detergents (Bold and Persil). The quality of the interim spins is important though - my Miele will spin at 1000rpm for 4 minutes after the mainwash, and at 1000rpm for 2 minutes between rinses and the 2 rinse cycles on the Miele rinses much better than the 2 on the AEG.

I thought the AEG was worse off at rinsing than the Miele, because of the jet (as Darren mentioned), and also it only spun at 800rpm after the wash and only for 60 seconds or so - it is the mainwash spin that is important in removing as much detegrent as possible from the load before rinsing even starts. The AEG Sensitive rinses performed no better than the standard rinses to be honest - despite it doing 5 high level rinses it would only start interim spinning after the 2nd rinse so detegrent wasn't being properly removed until the 3rd rinse. This said though, the AEG did come in close to the Miele at rinsing when the standard 4 low level rinse cycles were used. The Bosch we had too didn't rinse very well, and I don't put this down to the poor water levels, because the low water rinses on the Miele and AEG were just fine due to fast spins (the AEG on a standard rinse cycle would do 4 rinses with gradually faster spins after each rinse, 800rpm after teh wash, 1000rpm after the first rinse, 1200 after the second, 1400 after the third), but on the Bosch the interim spins were quite slow - 400 or 600rpm after the rinses.

I noticed the same on the Zanussi - whilst Super Rinse would do 5 rinses, it would only spin after rinse 3 and rinse 4, and only at 400rpm, so the Super Rinse was no better than the standard 3 rinses with 1200rpm spins after the wash and each rinse.

Drama wise though, I still prefer the 3 or 4 deep rinses on machines of yesteryear. Fortunately my Miele can be reprogrammed do do high level rinses as standard, so often I can get the best of both worlds - vintage style, high level dramatic rinses combined with fast interim spins .

So yes, generally I'm in the ballpark that, whilst water is important in rinsing (and don't get me wrong you need enough to float away dog hair, lint etc), as long as interim spins are decent enough (and not 5 second long excuses like on my old Hotpoint WM64), then the laundry is rinsed well, no matter what water level or amount of rinses you use. Took myself awhile to believe this after using the extra rinse and extra water for over a year on the Miele, but the standard 2 rinse cycle has proved to work, and I haven't had any skin complaints either, plus I save an extra 10-15 minutes on a cycle. I will still however run an extra rinse on towels, and on the Minimum Iron cycle which only bursts between the rinses rather than spins to avoid creasing, and I also admit to having my periods when I programme in the 3 high level rinses as default just for yesteryear novelty .

Jon

 

[peterh770]

Some loads just don't need 1:47 of a cotton cycle, but need more than 32 mins of the cotton cycle with the rapid wash option. Also, when time is at a premium, the cotton cycle is just too long. This is where the PP cycle (1:12) and Delicate (55 mins) come into play.

And sometime you wish you just had an old fashioned, no nonsense top loader to connect up...

 

[launderess]

Proper rinsing depends much upon what is being rinsed,IMHO.

For instance light cotton percale sheets and shirts do well with three high water level rinses, but no interim spinning and only a short final spin. Heavier/bulky items will of course need the full five high level rinses on my Miele. Being a vintage washer, by "high level" I do mean just that with around 10 gallons per rinse for "cottons".

Find light cottons like percale need much less ironing, the less they are spun. Combined with Miele's "cyclic rinsing", this works well.

Proper rinsing of course means using a detergent designed to rinse cleanly without residue.

L.

 

[oxydolfan1]

"rinse cleanly without residue"....

And I would say the Persil Sensitive and the Cheer Free powder that you've mentioned you use would excel at that...

For that reason, I'm not sure I will continue to use Kirkland's liquid in a frontloader when I get mine....

Very pesky suds.

 

[whirlcool]

I use the Extra Rinse option on our WP DD TL machine quite often. If I am using Persil, or All, or even Arm & Hammer the second rinse is usually clear and clean. If I am using Tide with bleach, I may have to reset it to do a third rinse.
With towels, if they are oversudsed I may even have to do 5 rinses before all the suds come out.
Now over Christmas using my sisters HE2T machine, if I used 3 Tbls of Persil I would get only an occasional bubble on the front door window when in wash mode, and a clear rinse. 4 Tbsps of Persil would have mountains of suds left over on the clothing, even with Extra Rinse selected.

 

[sudsmaster]

I think the best way to evaluated the optimum number and type of rinses is to measure the residual contaminants - detergent, soil, etc, in the final rinse water. A gal over in the THS forums used what I recall was a dissolved particulate meter to measure rinsing efficiency.

Good rinsing also is dependent upon the type and amount of soap or detergent used. A good detergent that keeps soil suspended, rather than deposit back onto clothes, and one that doesn't form precipitates with hard water minerals, will likely rinse out much better with the same number of rinses as one without these virtues.

 

[sillysuds]

The best rinse was with the old (Belt) drive,Kenmore and Whirlpool's eight spray rinses and one deep rinse.better than today's direct drive's

 

[liberator1509]

The old UK Hotpoint agitator top loaders rinsed really well - the earlier models did two rinses - a static non-agitated rinse where the clothes were suspended in cold water for about 40 second before pump out and a short spin, and a second agitated rinse. The Hotpoint didn't have a spray rinse, but ran water into the outer tub to clear suds. The static first rinse was replaced with an agitated rinse in the later machines (LE series on), by which stage most users were using low suds detergents. We had three of these machiens until they were taken out of production, and were very disappointed with the quality of Bosch and Hotpoint front loader rinsing, even though the latter rinses up to four times...still not a patch on the Top Loader...bring it back Hotpoint/Merloni....

 

[vintagesearch]

good rinse...

first i guess if you dont overdose the load with detergent then you won half the battle! lets see we have a regular bol-mol toploader so i guess if it would spray the load before the rinse for a while and not for the final spin maybe it would be better. One cycle on our washer does spray it before the rinse its called "easy care" its gentle wash with a high spin speed i use it for comforters and delicates i notice it does leave the load feeling more clean. so i guess maybe more highly powered spray rinses before the deep rinse for me would be ideal.