Dishwasher Help!

[texmati]

I really need to rethink the way we do dishes. Right now, we rinse the dishes until they are basically spotless, put them in the dishwasher, run the washer, unload it, and then put the dishes away.

I've recently read that rinsing dishes is no longer needed, but I somehow can't stop. If I leave even a bit of food, the dishes don't come clean. I was actually wondering if I'm over crowding the dishes? I tried putting very few (I mean, very very few) dishes in the washer today without rinsing and they did come clean.

How many dishes can you normally fit?

[nd_deadhead]

I jam my dishwasher pretty full, but I'm careful that dishes aren't nested together.

I scrape off large chunks of food, and rinse the milk out of cereal bowls if I'm not going to run the dishwasher immediately (I have a thing about sour milk). Our dishes get very clean, with little or no rinsing. Of course pots and pans with baked-on crud get soaked and/or scrubbed before going in, but I don't bother to do that with plates and bowls.

You might try loading the dishwasher differently, but the dishwasher should do the job on its own. If not, and you have to go to that level of effort prior to running the dishwasher, you might be better off washing by hand.

[FrugalGranolaMom]

I will generally do a quick rinse off before putting dishes in the dishwasher since I don't usually run it every day. I pack it pretty full before running it. Have you tried running it on a different setting? Our dishwasher has normal, heavy and heavy with pots & pans settings. The normal setting generally works for us, but like I said the dishes are usually rinsed off already.

[mkksmom]

Our dishwasher is the same way. And it's new. And the reason I got a new one was so I could stop rinsing so much. Sigh. The best method I came up with is soaking stuff in a pan of hot water, so we can use the same water, not continually running the water for rinsing. It also makes it easier to scrub. Plus washing them right away, which does not always happen with running my dd to her activities. I was using vinegar rather than jet dry, but I think I'll switch it up and see if that helps.

[texmati]

Well... this is my second load not rinsing, and they are coming out clean, but I'm putting maybe 1/4 of the plates in. I'm making sure everything is pointed straight down, and nothing is touching anything else.

I'm slowly trying to increase the amount of stuff in there and hoping I'll reach an equillibrium soon. DH is so excited about me 'experimenting' because dishes are normally his job.

Maybe loading very few dishes, mkks?

[Megan73]

Have you read the manual for recommended loading patterns? I just bought a new dishwasher and if I hadn't (uncharacteristically) read the manual I would have loaded it blocking the sprayer. Bosch claims there's no need to rinse other than scraping off food waste unless items are burned on and so far, so good.