Extra Detergent For Stuck On Foods

By

cookwie

I had a dishwasher with many problems.
The repair guy said to run the water in the sink until it becomes very hot and while it is still running, start the dishwasher (and then turn the faucet off at the sink). This way, the dishwasher water is actually hot.

Nice way to waste water.
I catch it in a bucket and when it cools off, water plants.

Also, he said to use
dishwasher cleaner
monthly. It disintegrates the little bits of food that clog the machine.

When I had a Kenmore, it never had these problems.

By PrincessJ@smine (Guest Post)

I was taught growing up to always wash the dishes before putting in the dishwasher. My mom always said that the dishwasher should have been called the "dish sanitizer" because it doesn't wash dishes..

So when my dishwasher stopped working, I called in an appliance repair guy.. he told me:
1) The way dishwashers work, is that the detergent must bond with dirt aka food particles. It foams up the soap, the soap attaches to the particles, and the swooshing sweeps the food particles out of the washer. If there are no food particles to attach to then the foam swooshes around and around and around, gets all foamy and is too light to make it out of the washer. Thus leaving residue on your dishes.

2) If your machine does not heat the water up (in other words, it uses water from the hot water heater and the washer itself cannot heat the water), then you need to use liquid detergent, otherwise... the soap never gets warm enough to properly activate.

3) The dishwasher detergent is only good for about 30 days after you open it. I have no idea if this is true or not, but the repair guy has no reason to lie about it.

So since then - I have been putting my dishes in dirty, and switched to liquid soap (I buy small containers now so that I can replace them more often) - I've had no issues with the dish washer. There wasn't anything wrong with it afterall.

By

cjgeo

Line the pan with foil before you make the lasagna, no muss, no fuss. Just toss the foil away.

By Lisa B (Guest Post)

Another trick that works well is to fill the dirty dish/pan with hot water and a spoonful of powdered dishwashing detergent. Stir the detergent into the water and let it soak for a couple hours or so and the burnt on food will come right off.

By

cookwie

I oiled the glass pan top to bottom on the inside, hoping to avoid the stuck on food problem.
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Never heard about the dryer sheet trick - that's a new one.

By Laine Butterworth (Guest Post)

Have you tried using cooking spray (like Pam) on the dish before you fill it with the casserole? Saves a lot of scrubbing grief, and it's not expensive.

Laine

By

michawnpita

Laying a dryer sheet with some water in a pan with stuck and burned on food works great too!