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Miele Dishwasher and Rinse Aid

15 years ago

I planned on a KA KUDT03 DW, but the large number of Miele fans here are swaying me.

One problem however in my conversion: I am allergic to rinse aids.

I do not use much plastic, mostly glass and ceramic. I empty the DW 8 hours after running. Would not bother me if all is not perfectly dry, but etching of glass would upset me. I clean my mom's old sterling silverware in the DW (I know, but received after she died--makes me feel she's here in my kitchen). So don't want it harmed by this salt I read about.

Does anyone here have any experience with Miele and NON use of rinse aid?

Does anyone know if the salt is used in the rinse cycle as well?

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Comments (6)

athomesewing
15 years ago
I don't have the answer your looking for, but just wanted to comment. Our old Whirlpool dishwasher never needed rinse aid to dry the dishes. I was not happy at all that the new one does. If we don't use it, everything is WET. I am curious what is the deal with that anyway?
weissman
15 years ago
If you can't use rinse aid, then you should get a dishwasher with heated dry such as the KA you were considering.
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whirlpool_trainee
15 years ago
The salt used in the dishwasher never mixes with the water used to wash and rinse the dishes - no need to worry about that. As a matter of fact, you can use salt, very hot water and aluminum foil to clean silverware.

RE: rinse aid. Well, Miele says in their manuals that you can use vinegar or citric acid in place of rinse aid - but results won't be as good as when using real rinse aid.

I am currently using Electrasol/Finish Turbo Dry, which is pretty good. I actually have the dispenser set to the lowest setting, which equals about one teaspoon of rinse aid in the final rinse.

There are also detergents with rinse aid substitute available but these products don't work as well as rinse aid.

How about Ecover (or such) biological rinse aid?

Ultimately, you could also have a Miele tech raise the final rinse temp on your dishwasher to compromise for the lack of rinse aid - if noting else works.

HTH, Alex
sandiei
Original Author
15 years ago
Whirlpool trainee, didn't know there might be a rinse aid that might not have the chemicals I can't drink (on my glasses).

Will check into the ecover. wonder how well it works. Anyone here with any experience?

Thanks!
lucypwd
15 years ago
I have a miele and find that the silverplate silverware tarnishes when using the miele tabs and rinse aid. I have switched to cascade complete and still have some tarnishing of the silverplate. Interestingly the sterling doesn't seem to be effected.
somonica
15 years ago
Hi sandiei...

"I do not use much plastic, mostly glass and ceramic. I empty the DW 8 hours after running. "

I've try to use vinegar instead of Rinse-aid in my Miele before and I empty the DW 4 hours after the program done...

Only some plastic have water spots on them and the rest of glass and ceramic are spotless!!

I normally use Sensor wash with 65C rinse with extended dry option on, for vinegar I set it to 5ml on my rinse-aid setup.

hope that help! :)

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