The Dirt on Clean Dishes

If you wonder why dishes come out of your dishwasher with bits of food still stuck to them, it could be because you’re rinsing them first. It seems counterintuitive, but prerinsing can make your dishes come out dirtier, not cleaner. That goes for glasses, pots, and silverware, too. The reason is that most dishwashers costing $500 or more sold in the past five years or so have a sensor that determines how thorough a wash is needed. At the start of the cycle, it rinses the dishes, then checks how dirty the water is to determine the proper amount of time and water to get everything clean. If you’ve already rinsed off much of the muck, the sensor misreads the dishes as already fairly clean. So the appliance gives them…

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Consumer Reports Kitchen Planning and Buying Guide (Digital) - 1 Issue, September 2016

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