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sail_away

New Dishwasher in Less Than 2 Weeks

sail_away
11 years ago

Thinking about getting my new DW today, as I went through the day. I'm prepared to put unrinsed (but scraped) dishes into the dishwasher and let it do the work for me. Today I made a cake and put the bowl, with a fair amount of batter into the sink and let it soak for a few minutes before I rinsed it thoroughly and put it in the DW--and later did the same with the bowl in which I made the frosting. So, if I had the new DW today,what would I do? Would I still soak the bowls? Would I scrape them more fully, without rinsing, and then put in DW? Or would I put them in, dripping with batter or frosting as-is?

At dinner, i sauted some mushrooms over high heat, which resulted in a couple brown spots on the bottom of my frying pan, as a result of a combination of a little bit of oil and high heat. I know the new DW wouldn't get that off ,as I have to scrub it with a stainless steel scrubber (Norwex). So, in that case, i suppose I would riksent out and scrub away the brown spots before putting in the DW?

It seems ridiculous to have to ask these questions, but this will be the first time I will have a DW that doesn't require extensive pre-rinsing (current DW is >20 years old).

Comments (36)

  • mydreamhome
    11 years ago

    I hate to admit it, but I have put the dripping cake batter and frosting bowls in the DW at one time or another--usually when my little guy tells me at 9pm he volunteered us to bring cupcakes to school the next day for some event or other and I'm exhausted and looking for the easiest path to get through the task. They have come out sparkling. With that being said, I do scrape before loading and only rinse really sticky things like egg yolk or oatmeal/cream of wheat. And then it is truly just a rinse of water--not a full on washing of the item before loading. I learned the hard way that the new DW detergent formulations can ruin pots/pans so I don't put mine in anymore. However, the example you gave of the saute pan would need more attention than most DWs in my experience can provide to come completely clean.

    Hope this helps!

  • sail_away
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    Yes, thank you. I felt a little foolish even posting this, so I appreciate that you took the question seriously and responded. It seems like the answers should be common sense, but i'm still adjusting to the idea of having a DW that doesn't require extensive pre-rinsing (or, as DH calls it, pre-washing).

  • dadoes
    11 years ago

    No "modern" dishwasher requires prerinsing the items unless maybe if it's a really low-end unit with a poor filter design.

    The only dishwasher I've had that was a bad performer was an early 1980s builder-grade machine that was in the first house I bought. It had only a rudimentary filter, if even that. I was accustomed to the 1975 KitchenAid that my familiy had, we didn't rinse anything. I tossed the unit out after the first time running a skillet with some bits of Hamburger Helper remains and beef particles were left showered over everything.

    These items have been sitting in my dishwasher for almost two days (since Friday evening), and they'll come out perfectly clean, guaranteed. I'm sure your new unit can easily handle them.

  • julieboulangerie
    11 years ago

    I throw everything but most pots and pans in the dishwasher with scraping and not pre-rinsing*, and have done so in several apartments with cheapo dishwashers. Everything comes out fine.
    * I do rinse flatware with cream cheese on it. And I don't throw bowls or tools with yeast flour dough on them in the dishwasher.

  • karenlee56
    11 years ago

    I rinse nothing before placing it in my new DW. It is generally not advisable to wash any nonstick cookware in a DW. Also, I would be more apt to wash frying pans by hand, depending on how 'greased up' they were.

    I can never figure out how to post 2 pictures at once on a post, so I'll post before and after pics (probably in 2 separate posts) of a baked on, crusted on peach cobbler baking dish mess that I scraped but did not rinse or soak before putting into the DW. I actually laughed before I put the baking dish in. Oh...and it also sat in the DW for 2 days before I ran the load.

    Before:

  • karenlee56
    11 years ago

    After:

  • a2gemini
    11 years ago

    I throw everything in as is - if it come clean - perfect - if any residue, it is easy to fix - but most everything comes out great.
    Dripping cake batter bowls, pans, baking dishes (My favorite thing to throw into the DW so I don't have to deal with wet soggy crumbs - yuck!),

    There are differences in DW - so each brand will clean differently and the DW makes a difference as well.

    Brown spots from overcooking - no problem!

    Have fun!

  • whirlpool_trainee
    11 years ago

    Cake batter is nothing - stainless steel pans might require some work, though. Otherwise... just toss it all in!

    Here is a link that might be useful: My Dishwasher

  • sail_away
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    Wow, thanks everyone. It will be truly weird the first few times I load the DW, but I'm determined to get its full value outof it. Can't wait to give it a try. The photos are especially inspiring. It's almost hard to believe those can come clean in the DW, but I believe you.

    I was afraid this post might be dismissed as a stupid question, so I really appreciate your taking the time to answer and "spell it out" for me.

  • dadoes
    11 years ago

    Last week I ran a 13"x9" glass dish similar to what KarenLee56 shows above (but mine doesn't have the blue decoration). Seasoned chicken breasts (sundried-tomato) had been baked in it. The dish sat for several days, loaded as-is without scraping, including burned crusties and a layer of grease. Came out clean like new. Sorry, I don't have pics.

  • karenlee56
    11 years ago

    dadoes....I only scraped because of the holy mess that was in that baking dish. Half of the peach cobbler (with pecans) was still in the dish! :)

  • breezygirl
    11 years ago

    Fascinating. I've never had a DW that could do anything like what's described above. If I put a glass pan like Karenlee's in there would be gross residue left everywhere when I came out. And I can't even tell you what a nightmare I'd find in the DW full of Dadoes dishes after it ran. Why can't any DW I've owned do that? I'm not sure there is an answer, but I'm profoundly stumped as to why that is every time I read a post here about how DW are supposed to clean dirty pans. Scraping had never been enough for me.

    My current almost 4-year old Kenmore cleaned a little better than now when we first owned it. My glasses (even those that just had water in them) come out with a greasy film all over now. Or maybe I just didn't notice it when we first bought it. Next year I plan to look for a Miele floor model, and I'm hoping I get as good a result as those pictured above!

  • sail_away
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    Breezy, That's where I was coming from when I asked the question. I tried washing dishes without thoroughly pre-rinsing only once, under duress. My dishes were nothing like the examples here. Anything that was heavily soiled I did rinse. But glasses and dinner plates were just scraped (very well) or emptied out and put in the DW. Then the DW was run immediately. Terrible results---had to carefully inspect each item before putting it away. Most didn't pass inspection and, since they had been through the dry cycle, they had to be scrubbed by hand and put back through the DW.

    What about peanut butter? Once a week my child makes a peanut butter sandwich and throws the knife, with a generous amount of peanut butter remaining on the blade, into the sink. Do I really just put that in the DW as is? Yuck--I think I'd at least wipe off the excess. But, if I didn't, should it come clean?

  • dadoes
    11 years ago

    Sail-Away,

    I am not sure what is your gauge of a "generous amount" and I don't like to waste food (peanut butter isn't cheap nowadays, LOL) ... but stand by for pics of a peanut butter test. :-D

  • weissman
    11 years ago

    The only thing I do other than scrape is occasionally use stainless steel wool on the bottom of a frying pan that has burnt on crud. Worst case, if something doesn't come out clean the first time you try it, you'll know better for next time.

  • karenlee56
    11 years ago

    Breezy and sailaway: It is only fair to say that many dishwashers out there don't do half the job that they are supposed to or expected to do, especially for the money spent. Read some of my posts about my expensive GE profile dishwasher that I finally gave up fighting with after little over two years of disappointments. I didn't actually rinse everything all the time, but there was a period of time when I thought that was the answer. It was designed poorly, probably didn't have the right water pressure, and just rarely cleaned the right way. I ALWAYS had to check each piece when I took it out, and I also had to inspect every glass and every piece of silverware. Many times I rewashed much of the load by hand. I truly couldn't take it anymore. I came to learn that over all, the domestic brands leave a lot to be desired.

    On the opposite end, many of the Bosch, KitchenAid, and Meile DW's give the kind of results that we expect- and then some! I can't speak for Jenn-air because I've never even heard of a Jenn-air DW. Any amount of peanut butter should be fine in any dishwasher because it melts. Almost anything at all should be able to be put in a dishwasher with very little scraping and definitely no rinsing, or in many cases no scraping either. I truly do laugh at some of the things I put into my Meile, and then see the perfect results that I get. Items should not be rinsed before being put into the dishwasher because the enzymes found in most detergents need the food particles in order to work effectively. If there is no food waste to break down, apparently the enzymes have nothing to stick to and end up etching the glassware and dishes instead.

    I guess if the dishwasher is not all that great, then you really need to be cognizant of which detergent you are using. Many people here like the Finish Quantum tabs, while others like the Smarty tabs. Everything in between has also been used in this forum. I had tried quite a few different brands of dishwashing detergents in my ill-fated GE DW, and by trial and error, I learned that Cascade Complete tabs worked the best. I should not have had to try many different detergents, however. That was ludicrous!

    Sailaway, I do hope that once you start using that new DW, you will be posting your own miraculous pictures! :)

  • dadoes
    11 years ago

    This test is running in real-time. Dishwasher is starting now.

    Before:

  • dadoes
    11 years ago

    I'm going to be really embarrassed if this knife doesn't come out clean!

    After the prewash:

  • karenlee56
    11 years ago

    LOL...it will be fine! :)

  • weedmeister
    11 years ago

    The pictures here are NOTHING compared to some of the stuff I've run through my KA over time. However, I will say that I usually spray off the big stuff before it goes into the machine, so wet cake batter would get sprayed off. And whatever the spray would do to the peanut butter.

    Burned items soak in the sink until they break loose, then into the machine.

    I do not do nonstick in the machine. DW detergent is bad on the nonstick finish.

    And I pretty much always use the 'High Temp Scrub' option. This adds a bit of time and raises the temp to (I think) 140F.

  • dadoes
    11 years ago

    Allrightythen. Done. Normal/Eco cycle, est. 88 mins including dry period. Prewash, main wash (125F), rinse, rinse (125F), dry.

    WeedMeister ... SailAway is either unable to run even these examples of soil through her current dishwasher due to its poor performance, or is leery of doing so. Yes, of course, non-stick items are not recommended for dishwasher washing. However, I run everything through the dishwasher that fits (with rare exceptions), and I do hand-wash that skillet occasionally and "re-season" it with a bit of vegetable oil.

  • karenlee56
    11 years ago

    Dadoes...That is the same exact dish set that my mom and dad bought a long time ago, and that my dad still uses. My mom passed away some years ago, but I will always remember how proud she was of that set! What a blast from the past. :)

  • sail_away
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    My DW is >20 years old, so I am essentially pre-washing without the soap before putting anything in the DW. I'm looking forward to having a new DW which, hopefully, will perform as most of you have described. Until then, I will continue to pre-rinse so I don't have to face the consequences of not doing so.

    No, I've never put nonstick pans in DW and don't intend to do so.

    Dadoes, I think you replicated a generous amount of peanut butter perfectly. I see that not only did the knife come clean but so did the DW rack. I'm convinced. What DW do you have? Alas, though, you have reopened an earlier question I've had about DWs--the prewash, which I assume is the same as the rinse cycle. I thought I needed a rinse cycle so that I could rinse dishes that I might leave overnight and not actually wash until the next day when the DW was full. I thought it would help prevent odors from the dirty dishes. I was told repeatedly NOT to rinse, that it would actually cause odors to do that. Did you use the prewash for illustrative purposes, or do you find the rinse cycle is useful after all?

  • a2gemini
    11 years ago

    One point - the new DW need dirt to work
    Really - the new phosphate free dish soaps need dirt to interact with the enzymes - so challenge them.
    Now - here is a fun video - I sometimes use it when training our electronic medical record software classes. iPad chopping block
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcIwXVKQjsQ
    Just enjoy the video - it is a riot but a German DW should not require pre rinsing :-)

  • whirlpool_trainee
    11 years ago

    Must be posting this on here for the 10th time but here it goes anyway.


    *click me*

  • dadoes
    11 years ago

    Sail-Away,

    You've said that your dishwasher is old, but haven't stated a brand and model. Being "old" does not inherently make a dishwasher a bad performer. My sister is using one of my previous units, a KitchenAid I bought in January 1992 to replace the aforementioned "builder-grade" machine in my first house, so it's now 21 years old and still does a great job.

    My current dishwasher is a 9-1/2 years old Fisher & Paykel DishDrawer. If you've done much research on dishwashers, you've probably found numerous bad reviews of them ... so if mine can clean peanut butter (and other soils) that nicely, think about how much better your new machine *should* do. :-)

    My reference to prewash is not separate rinse/hold cycle. My machine does have a rinse-only cycle but I don't use it. Prewash is the first fill & drain of the selected wash program. Two detergent cups. The first dose, which is optional depending on the selected cycle and how soiled is the load, is released in the first fill & spray period. Various available wash programs consist of a different number of fill/drain (wash or rinse) periods and target temperatures. As I noted above, the Normal Eco program that I used for the peanut butter example consists of
    - Prewash (with or without detergent as the user desires)
    - Main Wash (with detergent of course, heated to 125F)
    - 1st Rinse
    - 2nd Rinse (heated to 125F)
    - Dry

    For comparison, Normal (non-Eco) is
    - Prewash
    - Rinse
    - Main Wash (heated to 140F)
    - 1st Rinse
    - 2nd Rinse (heated to 150F)
    - Dry

  • Cavimum
    11 years ago

    @whirlpool trainee - Amazing pics. I need some of the Miele DW detergent! Our new Bosch is light years better than the old Kenmore Elite, but I still soak the baked on crusty stuff for 5 or 10 minutes. Otherwise, some of it is still on after a "Heavy" wash cycle.

    @sailaway - Our peanut butter knives are pre-rinsed by the family dog. She even knows the sound of the jar hitting the counter top and comes running, to do her job.
    ;o)

  • sail_away
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    Dadoes, My current (soon to be former) dishwasher is a 1990 KitchenAid. It has never required a service call and has basically served me well---although it has always required thorough rinsing before washing.

  • jakvis
    11 years ago

    Sail-away.. Before changing your D/W try doing 2 citric acid baths back to back. It might just be that your dishwasher has a large amount of mineral deposits after 20 years and just needs a good clean out. It might be worth an $8 dollar investment.

  • sail_away
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    Thanks for the tip, jakvis. I actually have tried doing the DW washes, and it didn't make much difference. We've already ordered the DW (and other appliances) from a local store, so we won't be keeping this one. I think I could have kept going with this DW a while longer, but I definitely would have to keep rinsing thoroughly. I might try cleaning it out again, if I thought someone might be willing to take a 20+ year-old DW. I hate giving up on appliances that are still working.

  • dadoes
    11 years ago

    Sail-Away, what specific model is your KitchenAid? A 1990 unit should be quite a powerful cleaning machine. Seems something is wrong there, somehow ... maybe a heating element not working, clogged water valve causing insufficient fill level, clogged filter or wash arm.

    The first dishwasher my family had was a 1975 KitchenAid, Imperial model KDI-17a. Two aunts also had KitchenAids. One of them is on her 3rd KA machine since 1969, she has always been highly pleased with them.

    And as I mentioned, I bought a KA in 1992 (Superba model KUDS22) that my sister is using now.

    None of the KA machines I've used required prerinsing. Even the 1975 unit that had a wash arm only under the lower rack did a bang-up job with anything and everything we threw at it.

  • mike1975
    11 years ago

    My Maytag dishwasher from 2000-2001 has never required pre rinsing. Crusty or heavily baked on soils usually get an overnight soak, but I just usually scrape with a fork or a rubber spatula and everything comes out sparkling.

  • _sophiewheeler
    11 years ago

    Does your DW have a high loop? If not, then everything that gets washed off gets put back on because of backflow.

  • sail_away
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    Clearly, I needed you guys back when I first got my old DW. I have always, always rinsed dishes; and, frankly, I remember being so excited because this DW didn't require me to actually wash the dishes beforehand.

    Yes, the high loop is as it should be. It's not that food redistributes, it's just that what has dried on stays on. Really, the worst offenders are things I can't see but I can feel dried on plates after I rinse them (if I don't scrub the plates). Milk rings on the bottom of glasses will still be there if they are allowed to dry. Anything stuck on silverware will stay there. So it's just easier to rinse everything and not worry about it. I go by feel--if anything is stuck on after rinsing, I scrub it off. I can (and do) put glasses or cereal bowls in without rinsing IF I'm going to run the DW immediately after.

    I'll definitely mention your thoughts to DH so he can make sure we don't have some preexisting issues that could affect the efficiency of the new DW.

  • sail_away
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    We have the DW installed and I ran it for the first time last night. We had skins-on garlic mashed potatoes, and I put both the colander that I used for draining the potatoes and the pot in which they were cooked into the DW without any rinsing. We had various dishes from a day or two previously (plates, bowls, wine glasses, regular glasses, etc.), as well as cooking utensils and silverware. I did have two knives with residual peanut butter on them. Without thinking, I wiped the excess peanut butter off of the knife my child had used, so I didn't exactly duplicate Dadoes' test above. (Thanks again for doing that---I owe you a spoonful of pb).

    I'm happy to report that everything came clean, except for a small spot of potato slush on the cooking pot. I figured that was the biggest challenge, as the starchy potato film on pans always seem a challenge to get clean. I think the one spot was left due to my not placing the pot in the DW exactly right. It ended up tipped up, with potato water remaining in the pot. However, the colander that was just as starch/potato encrusted as the cooking pot was spotless. I just ran some soapy water around in the cooking pot and it immediately came clean. Before running the DW, I told DH that the cooking pot and colander might not come clean, but if everything else did I would be VERY happy.

    I'm also very happy with the noise level---we could hardly hear it and only if we really listened for it. And I LOVE the way the racks glide open and closed with no effort; I could push them closed with my little finger, but I don't. I did get the extra top utility rack, and I really like that, too. If we don't have any major problems with the DW in the next few years, I will consider this a very good purchase.

  • a2gemini
    11 years ago

    Yeah! Welcome to the world of not pre-washing dishes!