Minor question, but if you don’t know, you don’t know:
My wife and I are moving into a new place, and we’ll have a dishwasher for the first time. (well, there was one in my home as a kid, but I never touched it :))
So we were walking through the store tonight, picking up things for our new home, when we got to the dishwashing detergent. Now, regular dishwashing liquid, I can handle no problem (Dawn, baby…stuff kicks ass*). But for an automatic dishwasher? I have no clue.
So I leave it to the teeming ones: What should we use in our dishwasher? What brand(s) do you find work the best? Liquid, powdery stuff, or tablets? Should we use that Jet Dry stuff?
*My God, did I just use the term “kick-ass” to describe dishwashing liquid? Just kill me now. )
We use the powder Cascade Complete. Our water has lots of minerals and this product works so well we don’t have to use Jet Dry anymore. We were very pleasantly surprised.
We use the Electasol Tablets with the ball of whatever in the middle. We have hard water and also don’t have to use Jet Dry anymore.
If you go the cheap route and use powder and Jet Dry follow the dishwasher’s instructions on how much detergent to use. The detergent box always says fill the soap dispenser completely when you really only need one or two tablespoons depending on the hardness of your water. The dispensers usually hold twice that much powder. The same probably is true for liquids and gels.
I switched to the Walmart house brand powder called Great Value. It’s cheap and Consumer Reports rated it highly. I have really hard well water and it doesn’t streak.
Whatever is on sale, liquid preferred. All I know is that if you have good water pressure and the water gets hot enough, that’s 95% of the answer.
I know CR did some testing on detegents, but they did a test eons ago about dishwashers and clothes washers where they used no detergent, and most of the time the detergent contributed nothing to clean appearances.
Our dishwasher repair dude told us that powdered is good for very hard water (we have a well) and liquid for soft water. I want to try those Electrosol tablets when this box is empty.
So I leave it to the teeming ones: What should we use in our dishwasher? What brand(s) do you find work the best? Liquid, powdery stuff, or tablets? Should we use that Jet Dry stuff?
[QUOTE]
Cascade. Do not ever attempt to veer from this standard. Horrible crustiness will be the result. Under no circumstances should you be tempted by Sunlight. It has the cleaning power of an old lady spitting. It’s all about the Cascade.
I was a Cascade fan for many, many years. But they reformulated their product (“New and improved!”) and things don’t look right anymore, esp. flatware. A recent CR recommended the WalMart brand and we’ve been happy with that.
We have only slightly hard water and use JetDri solid which makes things come out extra clean. But the solid leaves a residue on the float that needs to be cleaned out from time to time. (The liquid doesn’t work with our dispenser.)
One good rule of thumb not mentioned so far: pay attention to the manufacturer’s recommendations for detergent dosages.
There might be one set (for small, medium and large loads) recommended amount for hard water, and another for soft water.
Exceed those suggested amounts and you risk finding your drinking glasses clouding up- permanently. I think it’s called “etching.” For all I know it can also affect other stuff you put in the washer, as well.
Also…
I help my wife with the dishes, scraping the plates, washing all the stuff before it goes in the machine, letting the drain catch the crap that I haven’t already dumped into the garbage can, etc.
I am not in the least clean crazy. We have a septic tank and I don’t to clog the pipes or overload the tank with garbage I can easily dispose of in advance.
And to tell the truth, I just can’t believe a dishwasher can clean garbage laden dishes, utensils, and so on, without a little manual assistance.
I use those tablets with the ball in the middle. Using powder without the ball left everything streaky, and the tablet’s so convenient - just throw it in there somewhere and close the lid, no measuring and pouring and getting stuff into the little reservoirs.
)