I’ve used it to clean and sanitize empty beer bottles before filling them with home brew.
Ive never turned mine on. I use it for storage, mostly plastic bags. To me, washing dishes by hand is much less burdensome than all the necessary steps involved in using a dishwasher.
Similarly, I use mine to heat and sanitize the jars and rings for canning.
What steps? Mine just requires two steps: put in soap, press start.
I know that dishwasher detergent is pretty strong stuff, but my experience going the opposite way, washing pots in laundry detergent, is that laundry detergent is even more aggressive.
(And my present washing machine tears but doesn’t really agitate. Clothes come out with new holes but the dirt still on them. I don’t think the dishwasher would do any worse).
Our house has not one, but two dishwashers. Handy things, they also cook, clean up and put away the dishes.
The best unrelated task is having sex, something I’d be less likely to attempt if there were only one such appliance.
Potatoes! If you have a ton of potatoes to cook (like once I threw a party and had a baked potato bar), put them bad boys on your top rack.
I recently washed a canoe drybag that was coated with the insecticide permethrin…does that count?
My wife hasn’t forgiven me yet.
When we moved into the new house last year, we finally got a dishwasher installed. I have never lived anywhere with a dishwasher before. I thought dishwashers were stupid and wouldn’t do as god a job as hand washing. Holy crap was I wrong. I don’t ever want to live without a dishwasher again. It took a job that took me 15-20 minutes to do to basically under five, and it does a better job than I do in getting glasses and dishes perfectly clean. God, do I hate washing dishes by hand.
One thing I clean in the dishwasher that I haven’t seen mentioned is my 6-pack Igloo cooler. I pop it in the machine a couple of times per season and always before I put it away for the winter.
Poaching salmon? (I’ve never done this)
I’ve done both of these w/ mine, especially the potatoes. It’s on the rinse cycle only w/ no detergent and after the rinse agent has run out; it’s an incredible time saver for me since I have tendinitis in both wrists and live alone. Then I pop all the spuds in a fridge drawer and nuke as needed for a filling snack. Plus, I know it uses less water than I would washing 10-20 pounds by hand.
The clothes - they come out fine if they didn’t have surface dirt to begin with.
If you’re afraid what you want to put through the dishwasher is light enough for the water to knock it off the rack, put it in a lingerie bag from the laundry first.
Since my wife usually does the dishes I was going to mention a couple sexual acts but -------- in this crowd that wouldn’t be unusual. 
I know someone who actually tried it with the butt and fore-end of a shotgun and it didn’t work very well. He still ended up doing the same steps and work he would have if he had bypassed the dishwasher altogether.
I’ve never done it, as I can think of several reasons that it is a bad idea, but apparently some Glock owners clean their pistols by running them through the dishwasher.
I’ve never had an issue with the soap. Bras tend to die in ways that I am pretty sure are not soap related.
My favorite hat is something like 17 years old. Its a glorious, comfortable and very well worn boonie hat. At a low estimate, it has gone through the dishwasher at least 68 times.
This is because some Glock owners are more than slightly mad. They love to abuse their plastic weapons and then laugh at folks with steel weapons.
Its kinda cultish really, some people love their Glocks because they are a very good product and will tell you about their guns if asked. Glockists are a totally breed, sometimes as bad as door-knocking whatever religion walking around that day.
(name dropping: back when I had Chuck Taylor as my personal trainer, he would brag about how long it had been since he had cleaned his Glock. Last I heard, it was over 3 years and then it was only because he had bought new grips and couldn’t set the screws. ya can’t clean one part of your weapon without cleaning the whole thing. That just wouldn’t be right.)
Sometimes I send her out to buy beer.
This columnist at Jalopnik thinks not:
M sister uses one. Here are hers:
- Examine dishes to see if any need scraping or other preparation.
- Arrange the dishes in the dishwasher, each on its appropriate rack, efficiently distributed.
- Measure soap, open receptacle, and reclose.
- Put soap away.
- Turn on machine (I have no idea if there are different settings.)
(5A. Not applicable in her house: Wash separately things you can’t put in the machine, like cast iron pans, carbon steel knives, wooden spoons, etc.) - Turn the TV up loud enough to drown out the dishwasher noise.
- Remove, hours later, the dishes, and put them where they are not hidden from view below the waist behind a cumbersome door.
- Listen to me complain about being able to detect the smell of detergent on glassware.
- You have to do this while handwashing. I’ve noticed that people think the dishes need to be pristine. No, just scrape off the big chunks; you have a disposal, yes? You should really do that as soon as you’re done eating.
- Becomes very easy quickly. Though lots of people who complain that their dishwasher isn’t cleaning aren’t doing this step properly - normally this means dirty surface pointed inward, not covered by another dish or overpacked, don’t block sprayer arm.
- Takes 0.5 seconds. I don’t know what you mean by measure, you just pour liquid or powdered detergent until it looks full enough. You don’t need a measuring cup. Or use one of the premeasured packs. Whatever amount you’re using, I guarantee it’s probably too much and you can cut back a bit, same for your washing machine.
- You have to do this while handwashing.
- Push 2 buttons, or turn dial and lock. <0.5 s.
5A. As my wooden spoons are not made of weirwood, they go in the dishwasher. Never has one been damaged. I avoid fancy knives, but kitchen knives go in there. Most cast iron is too big to fit and people don’t tend to handwash these like regular dishes anyway, so they still require a separate step. - They’re not that loud, something must be wrong with the ones you are losing. Orders of magnitude quieter than say, a clothes dryer.
- You have to do this while handwashing. And hours…?
- Get new detergent. You have to do this while handwashing if that stuff is smelly, and it often is.
Meanwhile your kitchen sink is among the most unsanitary places in your house. And you almost certainly waste more water by handwashing.
I must agree, I have a small dishwasher and I find it quite the most useless appliance in my small kitchen. I live alone and I am quite content doing washing up as a I go.
I have noticed that women seem to have a special affinity with the dishwasher. They save up all their crockery and cutlery until they have a full dishwasher and do it in a big batch and then seem disappointed that it fails to remove some of the dried on food, so they put it on again. I recently cleaned out some kitchen drains for a relative and discovered what damage long term use of dishwasher does. The outside drainage pipes were seriously blocked with congealed fat, it was a very messy business.
I use my dishwasher for storing potatoes and other vegetables best stored in the dark.