Had an interesting experience yesterday. I had stocked up on Cascade Platinum pods but was out of Cascade Complete- what I use when I have a small or unusual load to do. It was time to run the shelves and bins from the fridge through the DW and it takes 4 or 5 loads to do this and did not want to use that many pods. I recalled I bought some Aldi Reeva gel DW detergent last summer, used it once or twice and was going to throw it away it was so terrible. At that point I was using my trusty 9 year old GE DW. The Reeva was about the worst detergent I've ever used.
Well I did not toss it I stashed it in the garage "just in case" - I do that too often... Anyway since I was out of Cascade powder I thought I'd use it. I was really surprised at how well it worked in the new KA dishwasher! All the stuff came out clean and shiny, not what I had experienced before.
I attribute it to the longer cycles the new DWs have. In the GE nothing came out clean using the gel, but in the longer cycled KA it was fine. Odds are this detergent and others need to longer cycles to activate the enzymes. I'm not sure I will use the Reeva as a daily driver detergent but for moderate to lightly soiled loads it looks to do a good job.