The dishwashing machine, some of us love it, some of us don’t. I, on the other hand, didn’t use mine for the few past months, maybe only for thanksgiving and Christmas.
It can be a lifesaver though if you are having a hectic day, you can just put them in the dishwasher and go do something else.
What people don’t know, is that the machine will need to be clean, to get rid of grease and de-lime it as well.
You might not know what de- liming is but that’s removing the excess minerals that are in hard water that’s on the machine sides. This will build up over time and make your machine look awful. It can also come off looking like some white particles on your pots and plats and you will be wondering what it is.
The grease, on the other hand, comes from all those dishes that you wash. Over time the grease will slowly start to block where the water will drain out.
You know what will happen after this, you will be washing your dishes and when the machine drains the wash water to rinse next. All the water will not be out of the machine because it’s clogged.
This will cause the dishes to be greasy when you take them out, so this is an important thing you must do. It will only take about five minutes in total to do this cleaning process in total.
What You Will Need
Dawn
Vinegar
Baking Soda
The Cleaning Process
If the vinegar keeps running out of the machine you can pour some in a cup and place in the dishwasher.
What i did to avoid this is to put some vinegar in a spray bottle and spray it all aver the inside. You can choose whatever method you want, whichever is easiest.
Remove everything that’s in the machine because you don’t want whatever that’s on the inside that will come off to be on the dishes.
Put the machine on a regular cycle and wait like 3 minutes, I do this because I want the hot water to be everywhere to help soften things so when I add the vinegar, it’s more effective.
Make sure to have the machine on the hottest setting and open the machine after the three minutes and add one cup of vinegar and wait till the cycle ends.
After this, the machine will smell like vinegar, but the vinegar is what helps remove the grease, limescale, and the odor, Now you can add one cup baking soda to the machine to remove the vinegar smell. Do the same as above with a full cycle on the hottest settings.
This stage is optional; I just do it as an extra step to get any grease that the vinegar didn’t get. I add three tablespoons of dawn dish soap to the machine.
We all know dawn is tough on grease, and the dawn I use has antibacterials in it, So that’s a bonus.
Do not add more than the three tablespoon dawn; dawn makes a lot of sud, and you don’t want the machine to overflow with sud and mess the entire kitchen up, and that would be a disaster to clean up and maybe even ruin other things in the kitchen.
You can use the regular dawn as well, but if your washing like bottles and stuff, I would use the dawn with the antibacterial ingredients.
If you want to have the peace of mind that everything will come out of your dishwasher clean and each time when you look inside, it looks like when you buy it, you can get a sponge that you use in the kitchen and scrub the inside if you want.
You can do this after the first cycle when the water is really hot. I also use a brush that I have in the kitchen for when I have to clean out some areas that only a brush can reach to cleanout. The reason why you will need the brush is to clean out where the rubber and the door meet on the machine.
You will be so surprised at the number of things that can accumulate there over a period of time. If you choose to do this, I would recommend that you do this before you clean the machine so that you won’t create a mess after you clean the machine.
The racks in the machine can be clean as well by hand because the Vinegar and Dawn will soften anything that will be on them.
All you need to do is take them out and use a sponge, microfibre cloth, or paper towel to wipe them off.
You won’t even have to put much effort into cleaning these because anything on it will be soft or it will be totally clean.
Tips To Keep The Dishwasher In Tip Top Shape
Before you put and dishes in the dishwasher, make sure to remove any food that’s on its. Bones and other food can be hiding under gravy on the plate or just look like gravy and will go in the machine and get stuck in the drainage system.
Scrape out anything that’s in a pot before you put it in the machine, if the pot has a burnt bottom and you think the food will come off because of the hot water in the machine, then you need it to scrape it out.
Do not overload the machine, on some machines, it will have the max load capacity that it can take. You don’t want to be in the shower and hear a rumbling sound from the machine just to go look and see that the rack fell off because of the weight and was on the thing that spins in the machine and breaks it.
If the load capacity isn’t on the machine, check the manual for it, if you don’t have the manual, I’m pretty sure you can go on the manufacturer’s website, and they will have it there.
Enjoy the fresh and clean look of your machine now, and you will definitely feel and see the difference on the dishes. You can do this process every two months if you use the machine regularly.
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