Please explain this further. I think calling it "equivalent of soaking
the dishes
in detergent water for 20 or more minutes." might be a bit of an
exaggeration. I don't know what your dishwasher does during this cycle,
but I can't imagine that spraying them for any length of time would do
as good a job as immersing them in detergent water for 20 minutes.

Well, the dishes (and pans) are kept WET for the entire length of the cycle
and there is a little mechanical action as well. I believe if anything
it's BETTER than just soaking them in detergent water. The only difference
is than when you fill a baking dish with detergent water you tend to be a
little heavy handed with the detergent. But you can be "heavy handed" with
the dishwashing detergent too (that's why I stick with the $2/big box stuff
from Dollar General or clone.)

Soaking is much more powerful than even a constant, lengthy rinse.

You can say that but it doesn't make sense. With a still water "soak," the
water next to the soil gets loaded up and you have to depend upon diffusion
to bring in fresh solution and take out the grease/oil soil. With a spray,
you are continually replacing the loaded up solution with "fresh."

You can, however, "soak" overnight. I'm limited to about 20/25/30 minutes
(never actually timed it) with the dishwasher.


Slightly OT - We transfer our powder detergent into a plastic juice
container - one of the kinds with a handle and a top with a slotted
spout. We find that we have much more control when pouring the
detergent, especially when we buy the extra extra large boxes of powder.

Well, since I want to be a little heavy handed with the stuff and since I
fill both cups at the same time, I don't worry about "control."