I was right about dishwasher pods and now I can prove it [video]
youtube.com562 points by hnaccount_rng 6 days ago
562 points by hnaccount_rng 6 days ago
summary:
The creator argues that most dishwashers are designed to use a pre-wash dose and a main wash dose of detergent, a fundamental often ignored by single-dose pods, and presents independent ASTM testing confirming the new powder matches or exceeds the performance of a leading premium pod. The video also features a detailed demonstration using temperature logging and peanut butter to stress the importance of purging cold water from the hot water supply line before running a dishwasher, particularly in North America, to ensure the water reaches the optimal enzymatic temperature needed for effective cleaning. This is further reinforced by showing how adding pre-wash detergent dramatically improves the initial cleaning phase, especially with fats and oils.
This has been his stance for a long time. He has a lot of dishwasher videos for some reason!
One thing I can't get a good answer to is whether the "prewash" step is universally the case or not. I have a good Bosch dishwasher and there's no compartment for a bit of pre-wash detergent. I don't even know if my dishwasher cycle has a pre-wash step. I would assume the dishwasher manufacturer knows what's best.
The owner's manual gives advice about not pre-rinsing the dishes because the food bits actually help the wash cycle, so I'm wondering if it works differently from the two-step process in this video.
What your manual says is common to most dishwashers.
You can tell if your dishwasher has a pre-wash cycle if it does a short run, then you hear it draining, and then it does a longer full run. I expect it probably does.
Also, you can always add a bit of detergent to the main compartment of the dishwasher for prewash. The normal detergent compartment has a lid so the the detergent stays dry until the main wash cycle, and most prewash compartments are just an open tray.
Come to think of it, if there is a latching door on the detergent tray, your dishwasher definitely has a prewash cycle, or else they’d skip the door entirely
> Come to think of it, if there is a latching door on the detergent tray, your dishwasher definitely has a prewash cycle, or else they’d skip the door entirely
Alec also mentions this briefly in the linked video; if manufacturers could avoid the cost of a latching mechanism, they absolutely would. Its presence means a pre-wash cycle exists.
The default program on my Miele pops the door open like 2 minutes into the cycle. Maybe the slower ones don't?
My GE seems to skip the prewash cycle on the default setting for whatever reason. It does use a prewash on its "heavy duty" cycle though. Incidentally "heavy duty" also works infinitely better, with no more damage done to my dishes. YMMV of course.
his dishwasher detergent videos are a good example of an "improved" product being more expensive and less effective (like disposable razors).
With better understanding you can achieve far better results. I no longer rinse or even scrape dishes. with the right approach my dishwasher performance has been stellar. The user manual also includes proper tuning to local water hardness levels.
Poor dishwashing also discourages people from cooking at home, which leads to less healthful diets. So it's an important thing to get right.
Dishwashing is fascinating.
I find his videos to have quite a bit of hand waving and poor methodology together with being overly verbose.
For example, he kept on saying that pods are not better in previous videos, but in the study he presented in this video, it showed that pods are performing significantly better than powders in every category. The study (which was not linked and I couldn't find it) was sponsored by a powder maker which the video recommends, but even this study showed just on par results with pods.
He does mention that a number of manufacturers aren’t making powders at all anymore, and also suspects out loud that they just aren’t trying with their powder detergents anymore, or are not bothering to apply improvements to their formulae to the powder form because manufacturers would rather sell the powders anyway.
He also specifically calls out Great Value brand powder as one he finds to be consistently on par with pod performance
He said a lot of things that are not backed up by the study he shared but didn't link, where powders clearly underperform pods.
At the end of the day, it'd have been much better for this community if we could have just gained access to a proper study comparing different cleaning options and learn from it instead of watching a 40 minutes video that doesn't say much and doesn't link to the study which is briefly mentioned there.
That has not been my experience with pods. When we switched back to powder the difference was night and day. Even my husband who used to swear by pods eventually gave in and agreed powder is much better. It is a bit fiddly yes but powder getting 99.9% of our dishes getting cleaned on the first run sealed the deal for us -- previously we were always having to add dishes to the next run or falling back to doing it manually. What makes it even more intersting is that even the cheapest powder beats every brand of pods etc we've tried. And we have a shitty cheap dishwasher that came standard with our new build house.
Generic $5 walmart powder is the best and is constantly sold out . I buy 2-3 boxes whenever I can
I have a Bosch as well, i sprinkle a bit of powder on the door. It has a pre-wash run which goes quick.
The manual is likely referring to not hand rinsing dishes before loading them which was very common 30 or 40 years ago. I had to train my Mother to stop doing that.
I still rinse dishes because it keeps the trap from getting absolutely filthy in one load.
> I still rinse dishes
This! I mean, at least get all of the low-hanging fruit with a quick, needle-spray pass of hot water. And to do so while the plates are still fresh so that stuff hasn’t had the time to dry.
Like, we’re talking about powering through table settings for a half-dozen people at a family dinner in less than 60 seconds. Plates, bowls, cups, silverware; everything done in about 10s per person. This isn’t any kind of a deep scrub; it’s removing everything that will come off easily as fast and expediently as possible before the dishes go into the washer.
Pods have become so ubiquitous that many companies ditched that powder compartment altogether. But you don't need one anyways just pour it into the cabin.
The video explains why there always is a pre-wash step. Regardless of whether it comes with a pre-wash-powder compartment or not. I will try his solution.
it's inverted. the closing soap compartment is the washing step, the pre-wash tray contents can just be dumped.
I have installed several dishwashers for friends and find them fascinating. All of the ones I have seen basically dumped the contents of the closing soap compartmens as soon as it started washing. Some dishwashers (looking at bosch) even have a little tray in the upper drawer that catches the pod.
It depends on the cycle for some. Mine one doesn't do a prewash for the 45mins QUICK cycle. But the ECO cycle does follow the normal prewash-then-wash process as described in the video. Hence I normally use the ECO cycle and put the correct amount of powder in both components. However in a hurry I sometimes just use the QUICK cycle and only use the main component as I know there is no point in adding more. The manual explained all this.
I'm fascinated at the number of people on an ostensibly techincal website who don't learn how their equipment works. You've summed up in a few sentences exactly how mine works, but there are dozens of commenters in this thread who appear to be unaware of the basic funcationality of their dishwasher.
All I would add to what you've said is that when my Bosch does include a pre-wash in a cycle, it checks how dirty the water is and only drains the pre-wash water if is dirty. If the dishes haven't caused the water to become dirty, it keeps the same water for the main wash cycle.
Also, I want to expand upon my first paragraph a little: I'm not having a dig at anyone who doesn't understand their dishwasher. I am just venting/observing that the world is filled with all kinds of different people and reminding myself that I shouldn't make assumptions about people as often as I do.
I've had this realisation many times, but it doesn't hurt to have it again. Communicating with people is lot quicker and easier when I remember that.
Yeah, I think there's some interesting related trends involved to. I still feel inclined with every new appliance to read the full manual, but I know not everyone has that kind of time or attention, especially if "I can just watch a YouTube video of it" is an option.
On the other side, you see appliance companies responding to that and shrinking their manuals of useful content because they assume you might just go watch YouTube videos instead. Some of the better ones might even include a QR code or 3 to officially produced YouTube videos, though so far that still seems rare.
Even in this video is the surprise reveal that something that used to be very common in manuals, full cycle timing diagrams, was "hidden" on a data sheet attached inside the door itself. Admittedly, it's great in that case to know that should that model be taken to repair that a repair shop might find that data sheet easily without having to search manufacturers' websites, but on the other hand some of those diagrams would be quite useful to me if I was the user of that machine.
sometimes even the company that made equipment doesn't know how it works.
my dishwasher after few months suddenly instead of filling water and starting wash cycle initiated some kind of fill & drain cycle that went for a while without going into wash mode.
i called in service. they replaced pump, solenoid. talked with manufacturer directly, swapped a couple of main boards. it made dishwasher snap out of it.
few months later it started again. this time i allowed it to do whatever it was doing. after 15 minutes it started to wash.
over the time i noticed that dishwasher does this water cycling every few months and adds extra time to estimated program duration.
about once a year after asking a few questions if sprayer hands/filters/etc are clean, it will add 2 hours to wash cycle.
none of it described in manual, manufacturer service personal and "Factory support" that service talk to know about it (maybe they do by now. they didn't few years ago)
omg thank you. my dishwasher has a prewash compartment so it's fine, but my clothes washer has a prewash step but no prewash detergent place. this elegant solution never occurred to me
video can explain anything, but reality is different.
my dishwasher manual breaks down each program. pre-wash exists only in half of programs
Find a PDF manual for your dishwasher. It generally will describe if it has a prewash.
The owners manual for my Bosch 500 says prewash detergent is not necessary. But it does have a prewash cycle as I can hear it draining before the main wash.
Note: This dishwasher provides the optimum cleaning performance without the use of a prewash detergent and further enhances our standards of sustainability and efficiency.
I keep my Bosch set to Auto and Extra Dry and use Kirkland pods. Rarely do I have anything that comes out less than perfect.
The Extra Dry setting seems to help with getting the glass and ceramics dryer. Plastics still come out quite wet since it uses a hotter final rinse rather than a heating element to get dishes “dryer”.
I have a previous generation Bosch 500 series dishwasher. For my use case I get the best results with the heavy cycle. However I found that adding loose detergent in there for the "prewash" resulted in soapy residue being left on the dishes if used in conjunction with the heavy cycle (but not with the normal and auto cycles).
Alec's dishwasher videos are based on some rather primitive dishwashers. For instance he talks about his test unit not flushing out the spray arms, but Bosch/Siemens filters the water going to the spray arms so it wouldn't recirculate dirty water anyways. Same deal with the prewash. Bosch uses a turbidity sensor to determine how many "prewash" cycles to run and when to reuse the water, something his test unit very clearly does not.
Yeah, I think one has to understand the man to really get something useful of what he says. He is kind of a cheap man and much of what he says really applies to low-end devices. Some expensive devices may have similar problems to the cheaper stuff but really if you buy a premium device you won't have many of the problem he talk about.
I know this type of person very well. They always have some reductionist approach to things, where for them, the expensive stuff is mostly marketing with added bells-and-whistles and largely works the same. My experience is that this isn't quite right. Some brands do have a premium that is more related to style/status but if you buy some seriously engineered stuff it will work much better most of the time.
He's a midwesterner so some of that's to be expected. But AFAIK KitchenAid is one of the higher end Whirlpool brands. I just checked the orange big box store and the price difference between the KitchenAid dishwasher lineup and that of the Bosch 300/500 series comes down to what's currently on sale.
For reference I'm pretty cheap too but try to be pragmatic. My fridge is a $600 Frigidaire (AEG/Electrolux) top freezer unit. The main selling point was that another youtuber (an appliance repair guy by trade) pointed out that it still has a mechanical timer. They get mocked by appliance sales droids but the top freezer design is significantly more efficient than the alternatives and the lack of electronics mean that you're more likely to be able to repair it.
> He has a lot of dishwasher videos for some reason!
He is known as Angry Dishwasher Man for a reason.
If the detergent container has a door, then that means the soap is dispensed later, which means there is a pre-wash stage it’s trying not to waste the detergent on.
I have a Miele dishwasher. Not only is there no place to put prewash powder, but I can hear the little door for the detergent pop open like 2 minutes into the cycle when on the default program.
This dishwasher also came with a box of Miele pods (and they encourage you to buy more). I think it's designed first and foremost to not use powder.
>This dishwasher also came with a box of Miele pods (and they encourage you to buy more).
This is because the profit margin on them is much, much fatter. Miele still makes powder if you want to use theirs.
Perhaps there is an indentation on the outside of the detergent dispenser where you are meant to pour a bit of detergent for the pre-wash.
Like in the video: https://youtu.be/DAX2_mPr9W8?si=Njn749InqNCbjhQd&t=822
Nope, Bosch 800 series specifically do not have an indentation, and also state in their manual that they do not require any prewash detergent and the prewash does not run with any detergent.
> He has a lot of dishwasher videos for some reason!
have you watched his videos? dude is on the spectrum.
to be clear, he makes good vids. but his fascinations exist for a reason.
It always seems a shame when naturally clever people are assumed to have autism, or when their cleverness is attributed to it. Why can't someone just be intelligent without labels?
it doesnt feel nice to try to dismiss someone's interests and hobbies as "they're autistic"
Thanks for the summary.
American dishwashers don't have their own heater? All dishwashers I've seen in Australia only have cold water supply.
Some US washers don't but many do. However, US washers tend to not heat water as quickly or to as high of a temp. The video cites two reasons: 1. US power being 110V vs 220v. 2. US dishwasher heating elements being limited to 800 or 1000 watts because many are designed to potentially share one 20A residential circuit with an oven and/or fridge due to possibly being retrofitted into a kitchen built before built-in dishwashers were standard and manufacturers not wanting to create different models for retrofit vs new installs.
> share one 20A residential circuit
15, dishwasher manufacturers can't assume the dishwasher is on a 20.
This plus the comment about sharing a circuit with an oven. If the oven is electric, even in the US it is 220v. If it is gas only, then it could be 120v as it only needs to run the igniter and other circuitry without running any heating elements.
I think he said sharing a circuit with a fridge, which are generally 110 in the US -- i think this is how my apartment is wired (2-phase 30A to oven dedicated, one 20A for the whole rest of kitchen)
Trying to run a resistive heater on the same circuit as a fridge compressor without tripping leans towards very conservative wattage
That's funny. Code in Ontario Canada is that the fridge needs to be on its own circuit. It's funny because we have an extra-big-ass inverter drive fridge that never draws more than an amp or two, even at startup because it's inherently soft-start.
Just a waste of copper and a beaker really.
>Just a waste of copper and a beaker really.
But also helps avoid the case where your coffee maker trips the breaker shared with your refrigerator and you don't notice until the food in the refrigerator is warm. (which was a risk in my previous apartment - the counter circuits were shared with the refrigerator). I think it makes sense to have it as a separate circuit.
My thought was to share it with the lights, so you get an early indication if/when there is a fault than just your fridge going out.
> But also helps avoid the case where your coffee maker trips the breaker shared with your refrigerator and you don't notice until the food in the refrigerator is warm.
Didn’t notice the coffee was cold?
Overall, given the massive fears of a fridge failure, which can happen beyond just electrical failures, very very very few people have any kind of monitoring/alarming for this event. You’d think that would be the first requirement.
> counter circuits were shared with the refrigerator
Ouch. Code here (Ontario) is that not only does the fridge need a separate circuit, but counter outlets need two separate circuits: each socket on the duplex outlet is required to be on a separate circuit (although multiple outlets can all share the same two circuits, but you're supposed to alternate top and bottom).
Of course, if your home is older than I am or it's a handyman special, all bets are off. If I run the microwave while someone is vacuuming in another part of the house it'll trip the breaker.
Good point. I haven’t tripped a GFCI in a long while but I don’t actually know if my fridge will lose power when I do trip the GFCI. My guess is that it will since it does have a water line and ice dispenser so probably requires being wired into the same circuit.
Refrigerators have become incredibly efficient in the last 40 years. I mean incredibly.
It sounds like this law is outdated.
Electric ovens in the US have required dedicated 40 or 50 amp circuits for decades per the NEC. Dishwashers, as well, have required dedicated circuits for a while but the 20 amp requirement is a more recent development (although it's probably been at least a couple decades).
Kitchens in general have required 20 amp general purpose circuits since at least the early 80s. However the NEC (but not the Canadian equivalent) allows for 15 amp duplex receptacles on 20 amp circuits so home builders looking to save a few pennies often use those. Besides, there are few if any, residential appliances out there that have NEMA 5-20 plugs. Then again hardwiring dishwashers was pretty common up until recently.
in traditional times it was customary to buy a few outfits high quality clothing that would last, and wear the same clothes for a week at a time, and then really boil them clean. This is the European market.
post world war 2 consumer choice culture in the US led to people buying cheaper clothing but varying their outfits every day and cleaning them (with copious availability of water) with less intensity.
once these patterns are established in the market, they become more like customary and it's what consumers expect of their appliances, detergents, etc.
3) manufacturers placing energy star improvement quotas over safety in programming the cycles.
American dishwashers are typically hooked up to hot water. Some will have heaters but they're not that powerful and they may only run for the main wash cycle
Not true. Dishwashers get cold very often.
American dishwashers are always hooked up to the hot water supply. It’s right in the installation manual, and I’ve never seen one that wasn’t.
I can’t speak to Australian dishwashers, but trying to skip the video by catching a summary has failed you. Heating is discussed extensively in the video
American dishwashers don't have their own heater?
Some do, some don't.
The ones that do vary in ability by overall dishwasher quality.
The ones that don't are hooked up to the kitchen's hot water line.
This is considered more energy efficient because a home's hot water heater (whether electric, gas, or another fuel) is better at heating the water in a bulk capacity than a tiny heater in the dishwasher.
The downside is that the cold water between the big water heater and the dishwasher has to be purged first for it to be really effective. If your hot water heater is in the other side of the wall, no problem. If it's six rooms away, problem.
Hot water from the house supply isn't that hot though? My dishwasher gets MUCH hotter than the hot water supply... and I don't think the heater is "tiny" I think it's a rather substantial element. The dishwasher also doesn't need to heat up a "bulk" amount of water, just the amount of water used for washing the current load of dishes.
Hot water from the house supply isn't that hot though?
Depends on how you have it set. My current and previous hot water heaters had thermostats which permitted adjusting the temperature.
They also had warning labels on them about scalding water. If it's hot enough to scald, it's hot enough.
The dishwasher also doesn't need to heat up a "bulk" amount of water, just the amount of water used for washing the current load of dishes.
If you're washing dishes and someone is, or has recently, taken a shower; or someone is, or has recently, done laundry; or someone is, or has recently shaved or done any of the other dozen things that draw from the hot water heater, then the water is already hot and available and doesn't need to be heated all the way from cold by the dishwasher. A properly insulated hot water heater can retain heat for quite some time.
My cheap GE dishwasher uses a hot water line, but also has an internal heating element to "boost" it, and help dry. My electric bill definitely suffers if cold water is used.
Watch the video; it makes a huge difference even though the hot water input is not as hot as the water can get when the dishwasher runs its heating element.
Also the size of the heating element is irrelevant. What matters is the power dissipated. Most dishwashers in the US will use only about 900 watts of power even when plugged into a circuit that supports 1500 watts. In the EU they often hit 3000 watts. Even when just heating up a gallon or two of water that makes a huge difference.
Modern dishwashers, especially in Europe, are using heat pumps as well. They don’t really benefit from the extra voltage and watts anymore.
I think you’re confused, heat pump dishwashers are extremely rare even in Europe, and basically unavailable in the U.S.
That’s not true at all. Bosch is mostly heat pumps, and they are a top consumer brand in both the USA and Europe.
Bosch dishwashers are NOT heat pump dishwashers! They have a pump that also heats the water. They call it a “heat pump” but I find that terminology a bit strange, as its clearly not a heat pump (which is a term of art in appliances and HVAC). It’s just a resistive heater that is no more efficient than any other dishwasher heating element.