You do not have to rinse dishes for European dishwashers. Just scrape the majority of solid material into the garbage pail - as you would for any DW - and your dishes will wash just fine.

No--just scrape. But if your home is anything like mine, you still don't want your dishwasher over there!

I replaced a grinder model with filter model about a year ago. Still have grinder model at another location. IMHO, filter/grinder total non-issue. Servicing filter is very infrequent and quick/easy in any event. Quietest models in everybody's lines are filter. I always advise paying for quiet because all the new machines run loooong cycles and whatever noise it makes must be endured longer than previously. (My idea of "quiet" is 52 decibels or less. There are many models in forties.)

FWIW, grinders really aren't all that powerful in dishwashers.

Rinsing or not is more of an odor issue. If the rate of dirty dish generation is low compared with the dishwasher capacity, the dishes could remain unwashed for too long to avoid odor.

kas

Thanks. Glad to know I don't have to do more than I am now!

food grinders are going away. Kitchenaid has removed them from their higher end models and whirlpool has also started removing them. They are not needed. The success of many euro models in the US has finally convinced the US brands that grinders are just noise makers.

kaseki et al -

why don't you just get a DW that has a top rack only wash or better yet a water sensor program that adjusts the amount of water used to the number of dishes and their level of dirtiness? Rinsing is not a real good practice.

You could then run it more often and use less water and not have to worry about the smell ! You'll also be saving the water you are not rinsing with. DWs are way more efficient than hand washing in regards to water consumption.

BESIDES - you are upping your risk for ruined dishes and glasses as today's soaps like to feed. They eat the leftover bits of food on your dishes. If you rinse most/all of it off the soaps starts to feed on your dishes!

Look at the size of your disposer under the sink. It's big because it chops up left over food scraps. There is nothing anywhere close to this substantial inside a dishwasher. The little whimpy wheel inside a dishwasher, they call them choppers, ends up getting clogged up and after a while will break. Sooner if a broken part of a dish or something else solid gets into it. It's the reason that most dishwashers these days end up having problems or loss of cleaning performance in a few years of operation. None of them are built well.

Get a filter model. They are quieter, don't have any smell, how often you have to clean it is up to you. I don't find it a big deal to scrape the dishes into the disposer first. I've had my new Miele for a month now and so far my filter hasn't needed any cleaning.

"the soaps starts to feed on your dishes!"

This is a myth.

sorry Peter ,

YOU ARE SIMPLY INCORRECT !

NYT article where several industry professionals weigh in on not rinsing and WHY !

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/21/garden/21fix.html

If you have some scientific studies or evidence that contradicts this I can get you an audience with the engineering boffins at Miele and Bosch for a lively discussion.

Here is a link that might be useful: Extension Service Report on soap/etching/filming

antss:

I have a Miele Optima and it is sufficient for my needs.

It is possible for the statement in the NY Times to be correct, and PeterH2's comment to also be correct. Detergents could attack dishes, without arguing that soaps (I assume you are thinking of enzymes) feed on dishes when lacking food. There is a horror movie waiting to be made here.

I would also argue that the NYT article askes for something unlikely to work in practice -- adjustment of soap according the soil load, which the user would have to estimate in every case and somehow know, without any manufacturer recommendation, what amount of soap to use to avoid dish feeding.

For such an approach, I would have to take a Miele tab and deconstruct it so that I could put just the correct amount in the dispenser for each wash. Maybe I should put in rinsed dishes for several days and then throw in some leftovers with a tab before making a dishwasher run.

In any case, no sign of dish attack or glass clouding has appeared after roughly a year of operation. Miele must use wimp enzymes.

kas

If you use too much detergent, your dishes -- especially glassware where it's most noticeable -- will etch over time. This is not news.

The solution is not to add more food, but to use less detergent.

"YOU ARE SIMPLY INCORRECT !"

That's what I get for being terse. "...today's soaps like to feed" is nonsense - the enzymes in dishwasher powders & tablets do not react with inorganic material.

What etches glass is alkaline salts - a simple chemical reaction, not any kind of "feeding". The pH of Finish is around 10-11, Quality modern dishwasher formulations ("today's soaps") are probably less alkaline than older/cheaper ones, because the fancy modern ones use a more sophisticated combination of ingredients to break up the soil.

The NYT article is pretty lightweight but at least they keep it general.

The University of Nebraska article is just plain wrong in many of its assertions in addition to being repeatedly contradictory internally. I double checked to make sure it didn't come from The Onion.

I find it surprising that antss or anyone else would hang their hat on either one of them.

They do seem to agree on two things: know your water quality and don't use too much detergent. Most people pay attention to neither. I always have. And in forty years of DW ownership and operation I've always had clean dishes and no etching.

We have a food grinder in our DW but I am sure it has never ground so much as a pea in the 7 years or so we have owned it.

I could not even imagine just scraping off large chunks and then just putting it in the DW to sit for 2-3 days or more as we fill it up enough to wash.
For one the smell that would cause, two is I don't care what kind of DW you have or detergent you use there are certain things that if left on a dish for several days basically become mortar and you will need a chisel to get it off.

For the most our DW is really a Dish Dryer for us as I rinse every dish and glass on our left sink and put them on the right sink where my wife loads them in the Dish Dryer.
Only takes seconds longer than not rinsing and never have a dish come out with dried on egg or a clogged DW drain or a bad smell so just makes more sense to us to give a light rinse.

We use Finish tabs and the only thing that has ever "etched" has been 2 old Pyrex measuring cups that are probably about 30+ years old.

Nunyabiz1, you're imagining and conjecturing a situation that doesn't necessarily occur. Over the course of many YEARS (20+ years) and several brands/models of dishwashers, I've routinely left scraped-but-unrinsed dishes sitting loaded for 2 to 4 days with no odor or cleaning problems occurring.

To each his own.
lots of food left on plates for days locked inside a moist box causes smells as far as I am concerned.
and rinsing a plate merely takes seconds.

FWIW....years ago I used to put 'em all in dirty and let 'em sit until I had a full load. Trying to follow CR's advice, ya know. At my locations they've always started to stink before long....24 hours being too long. Dadoes says 2-4 days. I've not had that experience. If I rinse them off, it takes longer but they still do it. Guess I'm a bad boy for doing partial loads once in a while.

I've read several places that rinsing dishes before putting in the dw is a "no no". Miele told me that directly too. I watched this video once from Bosch that also says, "no rinsing".

Rinsing is an old school habit (hard for some to break).

I usually just scrape them off and load. We are a family of 4 and usually run it daily so no biggie.

When you are not running it daily, do the machines not offer a quick rinse to keep smells at bay and keep things from becoming mortar like? I'm sure Miele does.

I had a KA with grinder prior to my current Miele Optima. Love how much quieter it is with no grinder and the Miele def does a better job.

Here is a link that might be useful: Bosch - how to load a dishwasher

I agree, I am not impressed by some of the content in the Nebraska article. Seems short sighted, very consumer reportesque. Do people really turn their hot water heater up over 140 degrees? (Rhetorical)

On another note, It seems those that don't know the purpose of a dishwasher can still give advice on em. All hail the internet.

I found that running Rinse/Hold *causes* odor by leaving the pieces wet and from mucky water left in the machine's sump. As we know, all dishwashers leave a few ounces of water in the pump/sump upon draining. Water left after the final rinse is clean, so doesn't reek. Not so for water left after Rinse/Hold.

Ditto dadoes. In my experience, rinse/drain does nothing but exacerbate the problem.

"Rinsing is an old school habit (hard for some to break)."

I find rinse/flush at the sink quicker and easier than scraping. Not talking about pre-washing, just knocking off the big, loose chunks and particles. That's why I do it. Not a "habit" at all. Demonstrably quicker and easier.....at least in my kitchen.

@ aprince - Do people really turn their hot water heater up over 140 degrees?

Actually dishwashers such as Bosch, Miele, & Asko heat their own water up to the 160-165� range. So they aren't really dependant on the household water temp.

As to etching the dishes... The enzymes start dying off around 130� but the bleaching salts start getting activated around the same temperature and become more aggressive as the temperature rises.
There can be a point to where if the soil level was not high enough to counter act the aggressiveness of the bleach that etching can occur at the higher water temperatures.

I don't profess to be a chemical expert but this information can be gotten by calling the 800 number on any box of D/W detergent. That's how I found out.

"bleaching salts"

That's rather loose terminology.

The component of dishwasher detergent that can etch glasses is the strong alkaline salt(s) that are there to destroy organic materials, such as fats and oils. This is the same principle as the washing soda (sodium carbonate) used by our ancestors, and the lye (sodium hydroxide) used in some drain uncloggers.

Dishwasher detergent also contains components (such as hydrogen peroxide aka "oxygen bleach") that are intended to remove stains and kill bacteria. These are what I would describe as "bleach".

Of course, there is considerable overlap in functionality between the two groups, but I think it is misleading to use the word "bleaching salts" in this context. Much better to stick to "strong alkaline salts".

This leads us to a solution for the pathological dish rinsers amongst us: add a small amount of vinegar (acetic acid) to your wash to neutralize some of the alkalinity. ("Lemi Shine" is a commercial alternative that uses citric acid.)

Here is a link that might be useful: Finish Quantum ingredients.

just to chime in:

i had a maytag dishwasher, that we had to pre-rinse to get things clean, especially the flatware.

we since have gotten a miele "dimension" and we do no pre-rinsing. i did a few "tests". pasta with mozzeralla and gravy. i let the dishes sit for about a day and half to 2 days ( i only run full loads - no "rinse hold" and they came out perfect. and no smell. fried eggs yolk, dishes/glasses sitting in my daughter's room for a week, gross, i know, but college student so don't want to rag to much on her and its her room/responsibility...) and Everything came out perfect. i use finish power ball, not quantum.

so, my experience.. no rinsing required for my miele. love this appliance!!!