How do you hand-wash dishes?

In My Humble Opinion
1

The disclaimer: First off, I love my dishwasher. Almost everything gets put in the dishwasher. I don’t buy dishes that can’t go in the dishwasher, unless I’m forced to.

That said, we do own a few things that can’t go in the dishwasher. Wine and champagne glasses, a few of our cocktail glasses, Mr. Athena’s Riedel scotch glasses, a couple non-stick pans, and my good knives. Most of the time, there’s only a few things that need to be handwashed, so I just do the “hold under hot water, throw some soap in, wipe and rinse” thing.

When there’s more than, say, 3-4 things to wash, I resort to “real” washing. That is, I fill the sink with hot soapy water, put all the dishes to be washed in it, and go at it.

Invariably, Mr. Athena comes by and laughs at me. “Who taught you to do dishes like that?” he exclaims.

“Like what?” I asked, the first time this happened.

“In the sink with all that water,” he says.

“Um, that’s just how you do dishes, right? Fill sink with hot soapy water, insert dishes, wash, rinse, dry. That’s normal.”

He proclaims it’s not normal, that the way most people wash dishes doesn’t involve the sink full of hot soapy water. Instead, you put the thing to be washed in the empty sink, squirt some soap on or in it, and run warm water over it while wiping with dishrag or sponge.

I contend that that’s not real washing. That’s a quick wash, appropriate if you only have an item or two to wash, or nothing that requires soaking. He tells me I’m nuts, and nobody washes dishes like I do.

So I present this to the teeming millions: am I the only person on earth who fills a sink with hot, soapy water in order to wash dishes?

2

I find your procedure sound. That’s exactly the way my mom taught me before we ever had a dishwasher in the house. I handwash my good china and real silver because I just don’t want to take the risk of breakage or damage.

3

My husband washes like you do, because he normally does the “heavy” washing (pots that don’t fit in the dishwasher, for example). I typically wash the delicate glasses and knives like your husband does. I hate having to put my hands in greasy water and will waste soap and water to achieve the goal of never doing it.

4

If you’ve got a divided sink, your way is definitely the way to handle lots of dishes, as taught to me by me dear old ma.

If you don’t have a divided sink, however, it’s pretty difficult to do, because then where are you going to put the washed-but-not-rinsed dishes, hmmm? In such a case, you put the dirty dishes on the left side of the sink, wash and rinse them individually under running water in the sink, and put them in the drainer on the right side of the sink.

Daniel

5

Same procedure. Most things go in the dishwasher, others wash by hand.

First, I fill an already dirty (the dirtiest I can find) pot with hot water and a dash of soap. Then I scrub each item to be washed, and rinse with hot water from the faucet. When I’m done, by this time the dirty pot i’ve been using as a tub has the grime sufficiently loosened, and I scrub and rinse this. Then I scrub and rinse the sink. I do like me a clean stainless steel sink. For good measure 1/4 of a lemon is thrown in the garbage disposal. Ahh. Clean, fresh kitchen. I wipe the counters down with 409 for good measure.

6

At the food establishment where I used to work, there was a specific way to hand wash dishes. The sink was divided into the three equal sections. The first section had soapy water and was used for soaking and washing. The second section had plain water for rinsing. The third section was full of water with a special sanitizer added, which would supposedly kill germs if you left the dishes in there for at least 2 minutes. At home, most people don’t have their sink into three seperate sections, but I’m sure the first two stages are more than adequate to get dishes clean enough.

7

I don’t have a dishwasher, so I use a dishpan. I soak the dirty dishes in the dishpan with hot water and soap – when time comes to wash them, I pick them up one at a time from the dishpan and swipe them with the dishcloth under warm, running water before putting them in the drainer at the side of the sink.

8

Most people cannot implement HACCP procedures in their home effectively.

9

Athena, he’s the nutty one. Why does he think sinks can be stoppered, if not to hold a bunch of hot, soapy water for dishes?

10

Your husband is dishwasher-spoiled. No dishwasher here (:() and your method is what we use. Dirty dishes are stacked to the right (larger counter to accommodate too many dishes, cups, pots, etc.). Right side of double sink is filled with hot, soapy water; left side is half-filled with hot rinse water. Dish drainer is on small counter to the left. Soaking and washing are done on soapy side, removing most of the soap bubbles, and placed in rinse water. Once rinse sink is filled part-way, dishes are dunked repeatedly in rinse water and set in strainer. When the rinse water gets too soapy, it’s drained and refilled.

I believe this method reduces the amount of water used as opposed to the tap constantly running. If there’s only a few dishes to be done (less than one sinkful), I’ll do the running tap thing, but that’s not usually the case. (We both hate doing dishes.) BTW, the water has to be scalding hot (IMHO) in order to get the dishes the cleanest and rinse the soap off. That’s why I use rubber gloves. That, and my hands don’t dry out so badly. The hotter the water, the less soaking time required for dried-on food and grease, as well.

Oh, and since we don’t have a garbage disposal either, the drain stopper catches the food particles before they go down the drain and stop it up.

11

Just the thought of sticking my hands (even gloved) into a sink filled with water and dirty dishes makes my tummy tumble. All those food particles and grease floating around - ick. I wash mine by wetting them and then washing with a small stream of running hot water going, so that I can frequently rinse the sponge. I put the soap on the sponge, not on the dish itself. I wash a bunch and pile them on a tray (I don’t have a double sink), then rinse under hot water, then wash another stack. If I have things to soak, they get soaked later or earlier. I try to rinse off everything when I put it in the sink if I am not able to wash them right away - it cuts down on the soaking requirement.

Sink full of water and dirty dishes - eek. Totally skeeves me out.

12

No dishwasher here. We use a dish pan, filled with hot, soapy water, and proceed from there (it’s still very strange to me to not have a divided sink). I’d call what your husband does “cheating”.

:wink:

13

You are.

If it’s one or two items, yeah, sure. But if you’ve got more than a few items and/or things that need soaking you need a sink of soapy water.

I’ve never had a divided sink (even growing up) so it’s been
[ul]
[li]put dishes into hot soapy water and let them soak[/li][li]one at a time, take dishes out of water, and use dishrag (or SOS) to make sure they’re clean, stack them on the counter on one side of the sink.[/li][li]one at a time, rinse each dish and leave them to drain on the other side of the sink.[/li][li]dry and put away the dishes.[/li][li]clean the counters.[/li][/ul]

14

No dishwasher here either.

I am so lucky to have one of those old-fashioned sinks with drainboards on each side. Unfortunately, though, it is not a double sink, so I have to do it in two steps.

I start by filling the sink with the dirty dishes and hot soapy water. I wash everything, place stuff on the left-hand drainboard until everything is washed, drain the dirty water, refill with clean, and rinse all the dishes. On the other drainboard is a dish drainer, and everything goes there to dry. It’s an assemply-line type of process

If I only have a few things, I think it saves water to just wash them directly under the faucet.

I miss having a dishwasher!

15

I want a dishwasher.

Preferably a leggy blonde.

16

As per Cinnamon Girl.

  1. Turn the music on.
  2. Fill right sink with hot water and soap.
  3. Put in dishes and cutlery to soak.
  4. Wait 5 minutes - have a beer.
  5. Fill left sink with hot water.
  6. Scrub dish in hot soapy water to clean and dunk in hot water sink to rinse
  7. Put dish in drainer.
  8. Put in pots pans etc to soak.
  9. Grab another beer.
  10. Bugger it do the pots and pans tomorrow.

Any other way is crazy.

17

I was taught to do the sink-full-of-hot-soapy-water method by my mom but I learned and now prefer the squirt-soap-on-the-dishes-and-scrub -while-running-the-dish-under-hot-water method. It’s easier for me and I hate it when my hands are in the water too long and my nails get all flexible.

Eeuch. I just got shivers thinking about it.

18

During my brief foray as a kitchen porter in a Michelin-starred restaurant in Scotland, I learned the following procedure which I’ve stuck to since:

  1. Fill up left sink with hot water & dishwashing liquid
  2. Fill up right sink with cold water
  3. Dunk, scrub & clean in left sink
  4. Dunk & rinse in right sink
  5. Take out to dry

Usually, I would just wash in the soapy sink and leave the dishes in the rinse sink until I accumulated a good pile of them. If the rinse sink’s water got too dirty, I’d refresh it, of course, but you can get a good rinse from water that seems somewhat dirty.

Method 2, if you’re disgusted by the idea of a rinse sink accumulating crud, is to rinse them under the tap, of course.

Filling the sink with soapy water is perfectly normal and, IMHO, the correct way to wash any decent amount of cookware and utensils.

19

Sink full of soapy water, brush, scrubber pad for particularly tough cases. That’s how it’s done, dammit.

20

Okay, here is the Evil’s multi-step anti-cross contamination process:

  1. In this home there are two complete sets of dishes, two sets of silverware, two sets of cookware, two blenders, two toasters, and so on. My used dishes go on the right side of the double sink, my roommate’s on the left side.
  2. The sink on my side is thoroughly scrubbed out and rinsed with our hottest tap water (which hovers at a dangerously high temperature) and then stoppered with stopper #1 and filled with hot soapy water.
  3. My dishes are washed in this side with freshly laundered washcloth 1 (washed with my laundry) and rinsed individually with the handy spray thingy.
  4. They are dried with freshly laundered towel #1 and put away.
  5. Repeat process with side, washcloth, and towels #2. Preferably, this is done by roommate, but as she despises dishes, it is usually me.
  6. Scrub out both sides of sink and rinse thoroughly.
  7. Full-on surgical-grade scrub of hands and arms before touching anything else.

When a friend stayed with us over break, she was afraid to do our dishes for fear of messing up the system.