Premiere powder with chlorine or Palmolive Eco gel with chlorine.  I also am using a KUDI23 at the moment...the Maytag is resting.

We use 1/2 of the Miele Dishwasher Tabs.  We have very soft water and most products suds way too much.  These tabs are hard so I can easily cut them in half and they do a beautiful job also keep the dishwasher interior nice and shiny.

I know, I know, but...

Are we STILL not simply rinsing out our dishes as soon as we're done using them, even if we aren't washing them immediately.... and wondering why things are so grubby?

So sad.

You too can have professional kitchen quality clean dishes. Believe in yourself.

It involves:

+simple rinsing your dishes as soon as your done with them. This gets rid of 95% of the dirt. One can even use cold water because all it's doing is knocking food particles into the drain and off your dishes.

Wipe greasy like butter, fat, or salad dressing with paper towels and throw away.

This alone would most likely get rid of coffee/cocoa staining.  Don't even have to get your hands wet or dirty.

+soaking the rare dish that has cooked on, sticky, or particularly staining foods like tomato based sauces.  Again you don't necessarily have to use hot water or detergent, but you can.  I on occasion will use a couple drops of bleach if appropriate.

Then, when ready, wash by hand using a soapy sponge method with direct rinsing under a hot stream of water, or

simply dump the soaking items, rinse, and load the dw with everything and push start.

It's NOT THAT DIFFICULT to have perfect sterile dishes! 

It helps if you have clean, filtered, and softened water.

Notice in the video, on a larger scale of this professional restaurant: 

on the far right a rinsing sink,

notice the second compartment he's got something that is terribly burned on and he's letting SOAK until the gunk can easily be removed.  Let the water do the work.  No scrubbing.

Then onto the main SOAKING compartment, 

Then into the dw.  Shame on this guy for not wearing blue nitrile or rubber gloves.  His hands are going to be wrinkled and worn in no time.

Best wishes.

Aside from the fact that I don't want to ruin a good manicure (Hee Hee), there is no amount of reasoning that is going to convince me to wash dishes by hand.  If the water is off, they wait.  If the power is out, they wait.  If the dishwasher isn't working I'll use the other one or pick one of the many in the garage or shed.  

It ain't happenin' here.  We don't rinse and the dishwasher gets run usually every couple of days.  I've never had an issue letting them sit.  There have been times I've opened it, and it's a little stinky.  There's an easy fix.  Through a tab in the dispenser and start 'er up.  Problem solved.

When I say it gets a little stinky, it's not from rotting food but from whatever we cooked, garlic, ginger those kinds of smells.  We scrape the chunks of food off so it's not like there are pieces of food in the bottom or anything.

I've never had any bugs of any kind in the dishwasher.  We've seen swarms of ants outside and things like that but not in the house.  I have a bug guy (actually now its a lady) who comes every quarter and treats all around the house so they don't get in.  That seems to do the trick.  If I need anything in between they will come out for free in between treatments and give it a boost.  I think that's a necessity here in the south.

If we have a reject I just run the item through again not the entire load.  We very seldom have a reject.  I won't mention this thread to my germaphobe husband who may want to redo the entire load.  :)

Ideally, you'd want to use it in the shortest cycle. The problem is that most modern dishwashers do not have a rinse between the pre wash and main wash cycles and bleach will destroy the enzymes in the main wash. You could get around that by using a detergent that contains bleach. If you have long pre wash cycle that heats to a target temperature, you can you do a lukewarm purge at the faucet and use an enzyme detergent in the pre wash cycle and a bleach detergent in the main wash to take advantage of both styles of detergents.

I emailed Colgate-Palmolive to ask abut the Eco gel detergent and this is their reply:



From: Colgate-Palmolive Consumer Affairs
Subject: Response to Your Email

Hi Gregory,

Thank you for contacting us regarding Palmolive Eco + Lemon Splash Gel Dishwasher Detergent. That's a great question! We'd be more than happy to assist in answering you today.

We are sorry to tell you that the product you are interested in is not currently being manufactured. In response to decreased consumer demand, we sometimes have to stop making a product. Unfortunately, we do not have any remaining stock to offer you directly. Even though we cannot help you at this time, it is important for us to hear from consumers, such as you, so that we are aware of your continued interest. We will be sure to share your comments with our Business Development Group. We do apologize for any inconvenience this might have caused you.

Please let us know if we can help you in any other way.

Sincerely,



Shalene
Consumer Affairs Representative
North America Consumer Affairs

I was looking at detergents at Walmart last week and happened to pick up a bottle of "original Cascade gel".  It did not have the Clorox logo on the label but the ingredients listed sodium hypochlorite.  I'm still using that Premiere powder with good results.