Dear Dirty Dad03,

John Gilmer (if he's not woman, should be) is absolutely correct.

The new dishwashers run 2 - 3 hours depending on the features. I love
heavy wash, sanitize, extra hot water, extra soak, etc. You paid for
those features, USE THEM.

I use only powder (or gel) because of those extra cycles. My dishes
look better than new, but I invest the time each washing.


DerbyDad03 wrote:
John Gilmer wrote:
It's pretty clear to me that, to get the full cleaning effect intended
one must put the tablet in the *uncovered* cup, or into the bottom of
the dishwasher, where it will fall as soon as one shuts the door.

I have always consider the "miain cup" to be the covered one that opens
during the wash cycle. For this reason, I only use the free sample
tablets when I am out of powder. However, you raise an interesting
point - if the tablet falls to the bottom as soon as the door is shut,
then there should be some detergent to use during the pre-wash cycle.
Now I'll need to do a test to see if there is actually any of the
tablet left after the pre-wash cycle if I use the open cup. If so, then
that ay be the correct place to put it. If not, then we have two
choices: no detergent during pre-wash or no detergent during main wash.

Maybe so; but that's not what the instructions say to do.

I pick up a package of those tablets to keep around: they don't take much
space and they are insurance when I run out of the cheap powder I usually
use. (God bless Dollar General).

As noted earlier, I basically do the same thing except I don't buy
them. I just use the fre samples and I always seem to have a couple
lying around.


For my dishes and pans I get the best results by using the extra long
"Pre-Wash" cycle on my machine. It's the equivalent of soaking the dishes
in detergent water for 20 or more minutes.

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

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.