Which dishwasher cycle do you use most often & why?

[polkanut]

I'm curious to know which cycles on our daily drivers we use the most often & why.  On my 8 year old Whirlpool Gold I use "Normal Wash" with the "Hi Temp Scour" option and heated drying.  I like the added temp boost to the wash and rinse waters.  I feel it helps the detergent do a better job while not having to raise my water heater temp.  I also use the delay start option quite often to take advantage of the lower electric rates during "off peak" demand times. 
​
​P.S., While not a certified "Bobloader" yet, I'm getting there! lol 

 

[iheartmaytag]

With my Maytag TT I use the Auto Clean with High Temp Wash and Sani Rinse. With Auto Clean it adjusts the cycle according to the load, High Temp wash heats the wash so the detergent works better (I at least feel it does), and Sani Rinse not only heats the final rinse sanitazing the dishes, but by heating the water in the final rinse you get better drying results. I don't use the heated dry, however, because I depend on the hot dishes to dry themselves.

I know, I Know--as soon as you touch the dishes they are no longer sanitized. BUT for that short time I have the satisfaction of knowing I killed the little buggers.

 

[DADoES]

 
1) Normal Eco -- prewash (1 tsp detergent), 125°F main wash (3 tsp detergent), rinse, 125°F final rinse, no-heat dry.

2) Normal - prewash (1 tsp), prerinse, 140°F main wash (3 tsp), rinse, 150°F final rinse, no-heat dry.

 

[re563]

I use "regular wash" on my bosch. On my dishwasher, it automatically sanitizes in every full cycle. I think i've used "Power scrub" twice, "delicate/Eco" once a year when I use the china for holiday meal--never use "rinse/hold". All of the full cycles adjust time, temp, and water usage by dirtiness of the load.

 

[frigilux]

Since most of my loads have pots/pans with cooked-on grime, my go-to cycle is Power Scrub (one up from Normal and one down from Soak). I choose the steam option and the 160-degree rinse.

If pots/pans in the load are relatively lightly soiled, the I choose the Normal cycle with steam and 160 degree rinse options.

 

[foraloysius]

With 99% of the loads I use the regular cycle on my AEG dishwasher. Temperature both in the main wash and in the last rinse is 65*C (150*F). No heat dry.

 

[whirlcool]

 I use the same settings as Harley does on our Maytag, except we use heated dry. Sometimes we have plastics on the upper rack and want to make sure they dry and are not dripping on the dry dishes below.

 

[roto204]

KitchenAid Superba 21

"Light wash" for daily loads; "Normal wash" if I have some casseroles and/or baking dishes. "Pots/Pans-Soak/Scrub" if I set fire to food in a dish, coated the residue in epoxy, sent it through a blast furnace, shot it into outer space, and painted it with peanut butter.

Dispensers 3/4 full, but we have softish water here.

 

[petek]

We just use the reg cycle, no heat dry on the KA. I've tried the heavier duty a couple of times and it didn't make any difference other than it took nearly twice as long. For detergent we use either Cascade complete tabs, all in one tabs, or Finish tabs. Whatevers on sale

 

[westie2]

Kenmore Elite TT

We use the Sensor wash the most and when needed add the hotter wash temp and sometimes the Sani rinse. We always use the heated dry. With lots of loaded pans use the high temp wash on pots and pans and also the turbo wash for the back of the bottom rack. Works good. Ours is like Bob's (Apnut)

 

[jeffg]

Normal with no drying cycle, usually. We keep our water heater at 160F for laundry and it really makes the difference in DW performance.

 

[rp2813]

1985 Thermador THD 3600

Soon to be replaced by the ISE Classic Supreme.  YAY!

I use "Regular Wash" most often with the Thermador.  I've tried the steam cycles but they don't seem to make any difference.   It's a beautiful looking machine, but too often it produces results that aren't.  Main wash cup gets a full dose of detergent.  Pre-wash cup remains empty or gets a tablespoon or so, depending on soiling.

Water here is fairly hard. 

I think that once the Supreme has been deployed, I can use the same cycles as with Nate's Superba 21.  I'll not use the "Energy Saver Wash" option since the water heater is situated some distance away from the machine.

 

[neptunebob]

For the new KitchenAid we have, we use ProWash because it "senses" how dirty the load is. If there is a dirty baking pan in there, add ProScrub for the jets toward the back. Always heated dry. This time of the year the heat is welcome.

This sounds OCD but I do try to use other cycles because on the Maytag we had, we had pushed "normal wash' so much that the touch pad wore out and a new one is NLA.

 

[joe_in_philly]

I use the Regular cycle on my Bosch most of the time. I believe the wash temperature is 140F and the rinse is 156F. Once in a while I will use the Power Wash cycle just for kicks. If the load isn't very dirty and has been sitting less than a day, then the quick wash cycle works fine, although it doesn't sanitize. There are no options on my machine except a programmable setting that will increase the final rinse temperature in order to increase drying effectiveness. I have that feature turned off.

 

[neptuneguy27]

In the Miele....

I normally always use "Sensor Wash". I find for the majority of my day to day dishwashing this cycle works best. The main wash temperature range is anywhere from about 115F to 153F depending on soil level and the final rinse I believe is 153F for sanitizing. This cycle includes a 10 mins. cold pre-rinse, the main wash and 2 cold interim rinses before the final rinse.

The other cycle that gets used quite a bit is "Starch/Cheese". Especially handy for when you have mashed potatoes or rice as there are none of the pesky starch rings around on the pots when they come out.

Chris

 

[hunter]

'auto wash'

I use auto wash on my Bosch almost exclusively. I also always turn on sanitize.

 

[jerrod6]

Miele - similar to Chris

I normally use sensor wash like Chris however my machine will only do three after rinses if the soil load is heavy...if not it will do a cold rinse followed by a heated final rinse.

Two other cycles I use are water save which consists of a wash, two rinses, and dry or energy save which consists of a wash two rinses or three if the load is very dirty and dry. The difference between water and energy save is that the load size sensor is not active for energy save which causes the machine to always take a maxium fill regardless of the number of dishes but it is a slightly quicker cycle. Also water save uses a hotter final rinse.

Quick(express). I use this to wash glasses only, when I am going to follow up with high heat cycles like starch or cheese. Quick turnaround in about 30 minutes

Starch/cheese - use these for cleaning baking caserols.

Rinse hold - never use it.

Normal - never use it because the load size and soil sensors are not active in this cycle. You can wash one clean plate and the machine will do an entire normal cycle with maximum water fills......forget about it.

I also use tall items cycle to wash only in the bottom rack.

 

[norgeway]

On my sorry Whirlpool!

Pot and pan cycle,it wont clean pots and pans, but does an ok job on dishes, im going to install a REAL dishwasher soon...KDS 15!

 

[appnut]

I generally use SmartWash 97% of the time. I have also determined by trial and error (sitting next to the machine) that if I use any options, other than heated dry, on SmartWash, it essentially cnacels out any of the flexibility that's supposed to be built into that cycle. The flexibility being main wash temperature set points as well as whether there are two post wash rinses or a purge and a rinse. So I pretty much just let the machine do its thing and 99.99% of the time am not disappointed. If I use any of the options (high-temp wash, sani-rinse, or turbozone), I will just go ahead and select Pots/Pans. I've also discovereed that using the normal wash and there's heavy soil, it will more easily add the full 2nd rinse than with SmartWash and the main wash cycle can run for up to 78 minutes, but the water temp doesn't get as high during the main wash as if heavy soil is sensed while using Smartwash. I've probably used TurboZone about 10 times the whole time I've had this dishwasher. (Yes, I need to get a life and a mate. Hey put the two together and ya get life mate).

 

[lavamat_jon]

Sensor wash for most general loads with soiling that's dried on.  Lightly soiled loads I tend to use either Energy Save 45*C or Light Soiling 50*C (depending on my mood lol), and heavily burnt-on pans etc get Pots & Pans 75*C.

My parents just use Sensor wash for everything, and they have no complaints.

Jon

 

[passatdoc]

"Normal" on Bosch DW

I only have three cycles: PowerScrub Plus, Normal, and Quick. 90% of the time, Normal cycle does exactly what I need it to do. Note: my machine is from 2001 and does not have a sensor. If there is a lot of baked-on or dried-on stuff, I use PowerScrub. I might use Quick for glasses/cups or after baking (flour or sugar-coated measuring cups, bowls, etc.).

 

[laundromat]

I never use any cycle other than the sani cycle because the main factors to get dishes real squeaky clean in a dishwasher are:

1. Hottest water available between 160 and 180F
2. Finish tablets
3. Jet Dry Liquid wetting agent
4. cool dry

When I had one of GE's cheapest built in "potscrubber" models in the mid 70's,we used the items mentioned above and had our water heater set at 170F.I would always bleed the faucet until the water coming through was steaming. Then, I would set the cycle on "potscrubber" and never had to rewash or pre rinse anything.All of it came out clean and sparkling and my stepmom liked me to run it,nobody else because I loaded it properly and never had to put anything back or rewash it.Handles up in the silver ware and all the dishes,bowels,saucers,casseroles and cookware were loaded facing the spray.The model we had was converted later to a built in. It had the cycle dial built in to the front ppanel and had nothing but a pushbutton to choose either heated or cool dry.No upper spray arm at all. Just the funky little whirlybird that had a telescopic kind of mechanism to bring the tube up to wash the upper rack.As much as I hate that type of dishwashing mechanism,it did fine and lasted from 1973 to 1987 when I bought Mom and Dad a new Whirlpool Quiet Wash plus for Xmas.It is still in use. My nephew, Richard, now owns the old house and is almost ready to replace it only because the other appliances he now has are Stainless Steel.

 

[appnut]

I did a bunch of baking this pasf riday evening and into early Sat. morning. I turned up the water heter to 130 and ran two baking utensil loads of stuff on Quick Wash and everything was fine. Very light soil in my books. I've probably used that cycle a couple of other times and that's about it.

 

[peteski50]

Cycle Selection!

On my GE TT 7700 I mostly use normal wash and when I have extremly soiled loads I use the added heat option. I do have good hot water. The normal wash will add extra prewashes if necessary. 99.9% everything comes out spotless. I have been using cascade with dawn packets and have great Luck with them. One packet in the main cup 2/3 of the time, but with very dirty loads I put a bit of powder in for prewash. Only on a few occasions have I used the cookware cycle. Occasionally I will use the speed cycle and china crystal for lightly soiled loads.
Peter

 

[amyswasher]

Pots and Pans

only because I get 2 rinses, instead of a purge and 1 rinse.

 

[ronhic]

Dishlex......last of the Australian made ones....

...before Electrolux sent the manufacturing off-shore.

"Normal" here....so that means:

- Rinse
- Wash @ 65c
- 2 Rinses with the last heated to 65c
- Dry....

Everything comes out clean

 

[whirlcool]

This sounds OCD but I do try to use other cycles because on the Maytag we had, we had pushed "normal wash' so much that the touch pad wore out and a new one is NLA.

Fortunately on our Maytag the DW "remembers" the last cycle setting you used and will start it again when you press the start button. This saves wear & tear on the "buttons".

 

[lovestowash]

Maytag TT also...

The majority of the time I use the Heavy Wash, with the High Temp option, and Heated Dry...
I used to select the Auto Clean cycle, but it seldom changed the water after the pre-rinse...instead, it dumped the detergent, resulting in the "wash"...I assume the sensor is supposed to operate in that manner...however, I much prefer a pre-rinse and a fresh wash...once I put in a saucepan with spaghetti sauce residue, thinking it would change the water after the rinse, but didn't, and found a badly stained orange tank the next day...Heavy Wash is the only assurance for a pre-rinse before the wash...
Heated Dry always...that's one thing this Maytag does well...I never use rinse additives...

George

 

[gelaundry4ever]

normal and high temp wash

I always use normal and high temp wash whether it's on my mom's Kenmore or my dad's Whirlpool Gold dishwasher with food grinder.. I don't use heated dry. I do use cascade complete in citrus breeze and its sister rinse aid.

 

[liberatordeluxe]

65C mostly. Glasses on 35C.