It’s not “rinsing” water; it’s washing water containing a solution of washing-up liquid.
To avoid the problem you point to, you scrape off heavier residue before you begin (into a bin - Australian sinks are not normally fitted with those waste-grinding drains that are commoon in America), or you may rinse heavier stuff into a trap, which is then emptied into a bin. Then you fill the sink and wash the utensils in it, without applying washing up liquid either directly to the dishes or to the brush/scrubber (which is typically nylon, not a sponge).
As you wash, the water does of course become dirtier; to minimise this you wash the cleaner items first - typically cutlery, glasses, plates, saucepans in that order. You may also drain the sink and refill with clean water as needed.
Run water as hot as I can stand into the sink. Get a clean dishcloth out of the linen drawer, chuck it in the sink.
While sink is filling, add dishwashing liquid. Now I just measured this, for clarity’s sake because I suspect we’re using different amounts. I used my quarter-teaspoon measure and I didn’t quite fill it. A quarter of a teaspoon is (WARNING!! METRIC!) 1.25ml. This is enough to foam up as the water is running, and to aid cleaning, but not enough to leave a soapy-feeling residue on dishes.
Wash glasses. Despite the generalisation that we don’t rinse, I do rinse glasses so they don’t streak. I rinse them under hot running water (I have had a double sink in the last several houses I’ve lived in, but have always managed to do this even in single-sinked residences).
Wash cutlery - using the dishcloth, wipe all surfaces of each piece of cutlery. Place into draining rack.
Wash plastics - using the dishcloth.
Wash china cups, mugs, plates - again, using the dishcloth. I’d generally wash plates from small to large simply because the small plates usually have things like toast and sandwich crumbs on them (well, had. I scrape off all food scraps before washing) while large plates are more likely to have been used for dinners and have remnants of sauces and similar that will gunk up the water.
Change water if need be.
Wash saucepans/frypans/etc. If need be with a steel scourer or steel wool, and then wipe over with the dishcloth to finish.
If there is stubborn or baked-on goop that is hard to budge, I will apply a small amount of dishwashing liquid directly to the affected area, let sit briefly and then scrub again. I would rinse this off because this would leave soap residue and a soapy-taste.
If at any point I need to rinse(/blast) with hot water to get something properly clean, I will do so. But for dishes that have been lightly soiled, scraped off, not left to sit too long before being washed and then thoroughly wiped all over with a dishcloth in water that has a non-excessive amount of dishsoap in it, this shouldn’t be necessary.
I leave the dishes to air dry, because I’ve always been told that is more hygienic. (Queue derisive American laughter)
Empty and wipe down the sink, and put the dishcloth in the laundry to be washed.
I know the popular name for it is American Exceptionalism, but I always think of it as the American Can’t-Do Attitude. Whenever one of these threads comes up the overwhelming American chorus is “That can’t be done!”. Washing dishes and not rinsing them? Can’t be done! You’ll flavour everything with soap and die of toxic bacteria! Make the bank notes different sizes so blind people can tell them apart? Can’t be done! ATMs could NEVER be designed to handle different size notes and what about cash registers, hmm? Gun control? Can’t be done! Everyone would be murdered in their beds. Socialised medicine? Can’t be done! Costs would skyrocket, and life expectancies would plummet. Nevertheless, I assure you that we largely haven’t died of plate-borne food poisoning, soapy food is not on the menu, our bank notes are of varying sizes and our ATMs cope just fine, we’re not in imminent danger of being murdered in our beds and our socialised health care costs less per capita and hasn’t stopped us having the second-highest life expectancy in the world. This could all just be luck, of course, and you might well be right that it’s all impossible to achieve.
Cazzle, do you actually apply friction to the surface of the dishes in the process of washing? Or do you just let it sit in the water in the sink, and then towel it off?
I fail to see the relevance of your rant about America
The rest of your question is answered in my post. Some relevant portions:
Run water as hot as I can stand into the sink. Get a clean dishcloth out of the linen drawer, chuck it in the sink.
Wash cutlery - using the dishcloth, wipe all surfaces of each piece of cutlery. Place into draining rack.
I repeated “using the dishcloth” for the rest of the items, figuring I didn’t need to describe what I did with it every step. I also thought mentioning that I chuck it in the sink would clue you in that I use it wet.
Think, please. My goal is to get my dishes clean and I do whatever I need to in order to achieve that. I wouldn’t leave small particles of gunk all over my dishes because I feel like I must avoid rinsing at all costs. I dunk them in and out of the water in the sink, use dishcloths which I also dunk in and out of the water (note: NOT TEA TOWELS, which are for drying, but a DISHCLOTH. Sponges disgust me :P), change the water if it gets silty, discoloured, cold or otherwise unpleasant, and rinse under hot running water if that’s what I have to do to get it clean… but mostly, rinsing the dish in the dishwater itself is enough. Scraping the scraps off the dishes first and pre-soaking helps keep the dishwater quite clear, and it hasn’t got so much soap in it that it leaves unpleasant residue as the water runs off and evaporates while the dishes are in the dishrack.
I don’t know how I can say it any more clearly. I scrub the dishes (crockery, utensils, glassware) with a dishcloth. A wet dishcloth that I put in the sink before I start washing the dishes. A wet dishcloth that I rub over every single surface of the dish before declaring it clean and putting it into the rack to dry. The dish is dripping wet when I put it into the rack and it is left there until all the water has run off or evaporated and has left the dish dry. If the dish has water pooled on it then I break out a clean tea towel and I get it thoroughly dry before I put it into the cupboard.
I scrub pots and pans or anything else that may have yuck stuck to it with a steel scourer or steel wool, then move on to cleaning it with a dishcloth as above.
You deserved the condescending tone. Somehow you seemed like you were coming at this from the angle that perhaps I just didn’t care if I ate tonight’s meal off a plate that still bore chunks of last night’s meal. I didn’t know how else to direct answers to someone who didn’t seem to think I approach dishwashing with the end goal of having clean dishes.
Seriously. You rinse after washing your:
Clothes.
Car.
Hands.
Body.
Hair.
Floor.
Ass.
Rug.
That you don’t rinse after washing dishes (that you eat off of, which is exceptional among the others mentioned above) is somehow safe and/or different?
I can understand if it’s a water-saving procedure, but to belittle someone on a BBS is just despicable.
It wouldn’t be too hard for non-rinsers to find out whether goop is left on non-rinsed dishes.
Fill a bucket or dishpan with hot water. Swish some dry, non-rinsed dishes in it. See whether anything visible comes off in the water. Smell and taste the water.
This is rather ironic, considering some of your comments, such as implying that Australians “don’t know how soap works” and so forth.
Please keep this thread civil. Implying or stating that other people are stupid or ignorant because of the way they do their dishes is not appropriate for GQ. In general, let’s keep down the level of snark.
This is silly an international net war over how we wash our bloody dishes. FFS there are 2o odd million of us and I venture to say that there are many ways to wash dishes as there are nationalities here.
You do not need to rinse if you do not over do it on the detergent in the first place.
I’m British and I have always rinsed. When we had a single sink my Dad insisted that I fill a bowl with cold water and use that for rinsing (obviously changing the water after a while if there were for than just a handful of dishes).
I’ll be honest though, I don’t see why I did that beyond my dad insisting.
Oh and one other thing - rinsing under a running tap sounds like it would be an incredible waste of water.
As an Australian I imagine that, as with most places, different people do it different ways.
I know plenty of people who hand wash, rinse then air dry. I know plenty of people who handwash, don’t rinse, then air dry. I know plenty of people who handwash, both rinse and don’t rinse, and then towel dry.
I’m a rinse and airdry person myself. Trying to extrapolate how an entire nation of vastly differing people wash dishes from the experiences of a few people on a messageboard is, however, fairly silly. Different people do it differently.
Besides which I would venture to generalise that an increasing number of Australians have dishwashers anyway. I know I finally got one after a full kitchen reno earlier this year.
