With all of the grease and fat left on our plates after a meal can we expect the dishwasher to take it all away with just a little water per fill.
An average of 13 litres is used for the whole cleaning cycle in most modern dishwashers.
Realistically, we need to clean off most of the grease from the plates.
A quick run under the tap before popping them in the dishwasher. This is considered the best approach for maintaining a long lasting trouble free appliance. You have paid good money for a dishwasher is not a garbage disposer. So keeping the filter in the well clean is also recommended.
But Don’t load the dishwasher with perfectly clean dishes either
On the flipside, if we washed all of the grease from our utensils and loaded the dishwasher with perfectly clean dishes we would could be in trouble too.
The dishwasher detergent, like powder in the dispenser or a tablet forms a solution when applied to water. This chemical solution seeks out minerals. That’s what the chemists have made it do. If there are no greases and minerals in the dishwasher, the detergent solution will look for minerals elsewhere.
Glass contains minerals.
So in the case of clean rainwater and a load of dishes that don’t have any grease, the end result might be the etching of the glassware. Glass can become cloudy in the first instance, and if when washed in white vinegar the cloudy appearance isn’t removed, then the glass is permanently etched.
So the idea is to rinse the dishes but leave just a bit of grease behind. Further if the dishes remain in the dishwasher for much time loaded with greasy dishes the smell might be a problem too.
