egg or cheese, I rinse those out, specially if they were caked on.
otherwise, I don't rinse, just scrape out most of it then run the DD right away.

There's only 2 of us so we don't run the DW everyday and I don't want stuff to dry onto the dishes - so we use the sweet doggy pre-rinse cycle. And I'll soak things like casseroles if we aren't going to do a load right away. But if we are going to start the load right away, I don't soak and the dishes come out fine. We also have the KA DW with the pro-scrub feature which has a dedicated jet on the back wall - and we use that for heavily soiled items.

I guess if you wash right away, I'd try a week of no rinsing and soaking and be diligent about the settings you use. Then you can get a better feel for what comes clean and then only rinse/soak accordingly. Your own in-home study : ) .. Now that I've said that, I'm going to try the same thing! (How do I not break the doggy hearts!) Good luck!

I do, but probably because my mom does/did when I was growing up! It's hard for me not to...

I do, but I don't have FP dish drawers, but it is mostly out of habit.

The worst problem I find is spinach. What is it about spinach that it floats instead of sinking? Any spinach at all and it spreads itself over all the other dishes in tiny green specks. They should have made the Titanic out of spinach.

I need a new dishwasher so if I do not rinse and get all food particles off of the dishes first, the dishes comes out dirty. I had planned to buy the matching LG dishwasher 2 years ago when I bough my refrigerator but other more important expenses came about so since the dishwasher still works (despite being so inefficient and not matching), I will use it and next year will buy a new one.

Absolutey, every professional I've ever talked to has said that food particles can cause build up in the bottom components (don't remember the exact name). The result can cause a shorter life expectancy of the DW or at least a need for repair.

I guess as I age :( .......germs, floaty things, stuck on food, really bug me so I rinse the dishes. Like bethv, there is only dh and myself so don't need to run the DW every day. So I don't like to leave the dishes with dried on food, ick!!!
Right now, I am doing dishes BY HAND, because we are living in our shop until our new house is finished. Don't you all feel bad for me??? LOL It is a small sacrifice for waiting to move in to a brand new home, for sure :)

Dishwasher manufactures recommend not rinsing dishes. I've had the same dishwasher for 15 years and I almost never rinse and it works just fine, it's never had a repair. My mom never rinsed and her dishwasher always worked great, too.

I do find that egg and oatmeal sometimes don't come clean, and I rinse fish unless I am running the dishwasher right away because it will smell.

If something doesn't come clean, which happens only rarely, then I just wash it again. I dare everyone who rinses to try not rinsing for a load and see what happens. You can always run the rinse and hold button if you aren't running it right away.

DH is an appliance repairman. The manufacturers state that the soaps today are engineered to work with the enzymes in food particles. He also said that only big chunky food pieces should be a problem. Plates should only to scraped and not rinsed.

American style DW's have hard food disposal grinder blades to assist with food partical breakdown as well as filters that keep food particals from redepositing on dishes. Euro DW's dispense with the blades and have filters only. With the use of enzymatic detergents and proper loading, there is zero need to even do more than a cursory scrape of your dishes. Leaving food on your dishes actually helps your detergent work better than rinsing them, and causes zero harm to diswashers. You actually harm a DW more by using a bleach based detergent and pre rinsing the dishes.

Old habits die hard for most, however. ;)

We rinse only eggs and avocado- they're the only two things we've encountered that the enzymztic detergents don't do a good job with. Everything else just gets scraped and loaded.

I was told that dishwasher detergents need "food crud" in order to work properly. Without it, the enzymes will etch your glassware. We scrape large debris from our dishes and let the detergent and machine do their jobs. Never had a problem.

Old dishwasher so I rinse everything or it won't get clean. New dishwasher soon..will try to break old habit of rinsing. My mom rinses too so it's a really old habit!

With the cheap dishwasher in my temporary-while-building apartment, I find I need to do more pre-treating. In the last house, I just scraped stuff off before loading. I ran the dishwasher every three days, and everything was spotless. Not so with the apartment one, but when we get into the new house . . . Bosch, here I come!!

I just use a rubber spatula to scrape and in they go. There are the two of us, so I run a rinse and hold cycle until the machine is full.

Yes, even though I have a top-of-the line Bosch since May. I just can't stand the globs of food dripping all over everything as the day goes on and the dishes accumulate since the breakfast meal. I use the 30 minute Quick cycle on this DW, not the regular cycle, and everything is sparkling. I didn't know about how the soap needs food to work, though (sounds like DH and kids!)

It takes just seconds and yeilds a better outcome, so why not? I have a new Kenmore that CR rated at 82 [best rating was an 83], so it's possibly unnecessary, but I haven't really put that to the test yet.

I hate to disagree, but IMHO obviously, there are reasons manufacturers are going to say no need to scrape and anytime my DH has loaded the DW and not scraped, there is residue from food on our knives and what not. And this is with a newer high performing machine. No..I don't care what any of the manufacturers say, my plumber recommends rinsing for reasons I mentioned in my previous post and since he has no real alterior motive, I'll take his word for it.

Let me know if you win. I try to just scrape and only rinse/soak the really bad stuff but spouse and every *%#$ houseguest refuse to believe it. Annoys the heck out of me because they (houseguests) often stack the wet dishes on the counter spreading sludge.

If the DW isn't being run daily, it can be a good idea though because stuff will stick if it sits too long.

In general, if it works, it works, so why waste water and effort? Follow the manufacturer's instructions, if all else fails.

Another old DW owner here, so yes I scrape & rinse or they won't come clean.

Even if (when?) I get a new DW rinsing off the chunks would be a hard habit to break. Especially in a 2-person household, where the DW is only run every 2 or 3 days.

Fori, I hear you on the houseguest's disbelief! At Thanksgiving, my SILs thought I was crazy that I didn't rinse, and were trying to "help" by flinging wet gook everywhere while I was trying to load the DWs. Luckily DH was able to distract them into a different activity before I had to formally banish them from the kitchen.

Thanks all. I don't mind mild rinsing. I just don't like to have bowls in the sink filled with forks and knives soaking, and glasses with same, soaking. I'd rather that he just put them in the dishwasher. But he has many other fine qualities.

Oh right. Thanksgiving. My guests didn't RINSE the dishes, they WASHED the dishes, before putting them in the DW. After 20+ minutes I was begging them to just go into the LR & relax & chat, so that I could finish up later.

I think this just goes into the *different strokes* category, & you just need to shrug & smile. :)

I used to rinse and soak dishes. But since installing the KA DW I thought I'd give it a try and only scrap food from plate. The DW is so wonderful, dishes came out sparkling clean. I have since happily , easily broke my age-old habit. It's only DH and myself, we don't run the DW everyday. On average it is 3-4 days with caked in, dried up food particles, including oatmeal in the DW, not sink. And after a normal cycle, not Pro-Scrub cycle they all come out clean. Life is simple!

I don't rinse - except for raw egg because I don't like the smell.
I've found that if I use powder detergent the dishes and glasses come out sparkling. I could not understand why in my new KA dishwasher, the mugs were coming out tea stained and with debris in them.
I then read somewhere on this forum about using a different type of detergent. I'd been using gel and switched to powder.
WOW - I never have to rinse and everything comes out beautiful.

Been doing dishes since I was 9 years old, so rinsing is second nature. Now that we have a new Miele, the rinse is quite minimal. It's economical and efficient to rinse in short bursts with the Tapmaster and pulldown Vinnata--just enough to get the gross stuff off. Dishes come out sparkling. Maybe they would come out just as clean even if we just scraped, but DW has made it clear she does not relish the idea of cleaning out the little filter. I do soak my oatmeal bowl every morning.

I broke myself of the habit when I bought my new dishwasher. Everything comes out just fine. Most little bits just seem to rinse away (as they would if I were to rinse the dishes before loading), and the little bit that doesn't rinse away just ends up in the strainer basket to be rinsed out. (I have the F&P dishdrawers.)

For 5 years I've been rinsing before the loading of my FPDD. Mostly because I hate to clean the tiny screen that catches the left on crud. It is designed of tight mesh with hard to reach areas. (I purchased a toothbrush size wire brush to do the job.)

I do a quick rinse and load or things just don,t get as clean as I like.It doesn,t take any longer to rinse than to scrap so I don,t see the big deal with a quick rinse unless you are trying to conserve water.

I had a small dinner party last night and I just stuck the dishes right in the dishwasher, I barely even scrapped. Someone tried to rinse a plate and I stopped him and told him no rinsing needed. I did a quick rinse and hold and after everyone left I ran the dishwasher.

This morning I unloaded the dishwasher and only one bowl has a tiny spot that didn't come clean. Everything else was perfectly clean. And this is with a 15 year old machine.

There's enough to do around here, why do more work that isn't necessary?

I rinse because I only run a load every 3rd day and the dishwasher will smell and everything gets crusty if I don't. My electric bill is high enough as it is; I'm not inclined to run a partial load on the rinse cycle if it only takes a minute to pass the dishes under the faucet. However, if I have company(i.e. a full load) and plan to run the dishwasher that evening, I don't bother to rinse.

Never, learned with our water restrictions not to waste and my old Waste King with Cascade has no problem. I'd rather Water my roses than plates.

Yakker2 - To wash the strainer on the FPDD, just put it in a wash with the other dishdrawer. Not that you need to do it very often. Usually, a quick rinse is plenty.

It's a habit and I will always rinse no matter how good a job the dishwasher does.

I'm glad others have had luck with their KA dishwashers. But if I didn't almost wash the dishes first with mine (about 4 years old), they would be gritty. Worst purchase mistake in my kitchen

So, is how clean the dishes finish about the dishwasher, the detergent or the prewash prep-rinsing? And does the dishwasher's age make a difference? My Waste King is old.

Well: as my Grandma use to say: "Dishwasher doesn't have a scrub brush!"
I wash dishes with soap & hot water immediately after eating or cooking : no soaking: and in the dishwasher they go & get ran the same night: put up ASAP.
Not so good to soak dishes for long periods of time for years with undermount sink: gravity. You never know.

~Happy Holidays~

Other than "cooked" on stuff, like cheese from the microwave, no.

My approach after reading enough about it was "let's see how little I need to rinse". Only once ever 5 or 10 loads does something come out needing more cleaning. I figure cleaning that one plate is a lot less effort than rinsing.

Old habits die hard and I always rinse; now I see previous posters say that dishwashers (or detergent) works better on dirty dishes and particles! Maybe that's why I'm dissatisfied with every dishwasher I've ever owned. It's gotten to the point that since I had my silgranit installed that I actually enjoy hand washing dishes and hardly ever run the dishwasher anymore. But I'll heed the advice here and try to remember not to rinse when I do use it again.