DIY Dishwasher Detergent?

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Hristo Botev
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Joined: Tue Jul 17, 2018 3:42 am

DIY Dishwasher Detergent?

Post by Hristo Botev »

As we continue replacing store-bought cleaners and personal hygiene items with their DIY counterparts, I'd appreciate if anyone could share their tried-and-true recipe for homemade dishwasher detergent. There seem to be quite a bit of variety of recipes out there on the Internet for this one; much more than I've found to be the case with other items for which the recipes are pretty straightforward and uniform.

Laura Ingalls
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Re: DIY Dishwasher Detergent?

Post by Laura Ingalls »

I had a concoction that was washing soda, real cascade, and something else that I found posted on the internet. It was okay and less expensive.

I have since lived in a succession of places with no dishwasher and my current on is broken with no plan to replace.

SavingWithBabies
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Re: DIY Dishwasher Detergent?

Post by SavingWithBabies »

We tried one for a little while that was simple: baking soda and regular dish washing liquid (used dawn). It worked okay. We did have some oil/scum buildup and I'm not sure if it contributed to it. It didn't seem to work quite as well as our store bought dishwasher detergent but it was fairly close as long as you got the ratio right. I'm not crazy about this recipe though as it seems like you're fighting the sudsing agents added to regular dish washing detergent by adding baking soda and it works but seems like it would be better to not have the sudsing agents at all (by sudsing agents, I mean whatever contributes to the bubbles/foam in regular dish washing detergent). Our current apartment is our first place with a dish washer and I kind of like it.

If I do try another recipe, I'm going to try one which I can make in bigger batches in order to avoid having to measure/think about it when loading the machine.

horsewoman
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Re: DIY Dishwasher Detergent?

Post by horsewoman »

With my last dishwasher I used a homemade powder mixed after a recipe I'll paste in afterwards. The dishes were mostly clean but there often seemed to be a fine, greasy film on them, so I had to run the washer twice a lot.

After using the powder for a while the (not so very old) machine broke (it was a Siemens, which are usually good and longer lasting devices). Obviously I can't say for sure that the powder was in any way connected to the damage, but combined with the less than stellar cleaning results I went back to store bought powder with my new washer. The dishes are cleaner.

Here is my recipe, it's from a German DIY site, I ran it through Google translate:

To make a kilo of dishwasher powder you need: 300 g citric acid in powder form (in the drugstore or buy online) 300 g soda (available in the drugstore, many unpackaged shops or online) 300 g baking soda (in smaller quantities in the baking agent department or, alternatively, buy online) 125 g dishwasher salt (optional - for older machines without a built-in water softener or to increase the effectiveness of the detergents, e.g. this one) Source: https://www.smarticular.net/pulver-fuer-die- Dishwasher-inexpensive-do-it-yourself / Copyright © smarticular.net
Last edited by horsewoman on Tue Aug 17, 2021 6:18 am, edited 1 time in total.

SavingWithBabies
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Re: DIY Dishwasher Detergent?

Post by SavingWithBabies »

@horsewoman Ah, good to know about the machine keeling over. That was one of our concerns too. My wife reminded me the other one was the dishes were dull with the formula I posted above (I suspect citric acid would likely fix that problem).

SavingWithBabies
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Re: DIY Dishwasher Detergent?

Post by SavingWithBabies »

@HB Did you end up trying making your own solution? If so, how did it go (and if good, which recipe)?

I've been thinking about having a dishwasher. We're renting and one came with it. Our prior rental came with one too. I mostly likely because of everything around washing the dishes. I still have to clean them off fairly well but I have a big dishwasher to put them all in instead of having to play the stacking game with a dish drying rack. We still have one of those too of course. It wouldn't be so bad with one or two people but with a family, it's nice having the dishwasher. We actually run it every other day unless family is visiting. One of my chores is the evening dishes and it just makes it faster too. I could definitely live without one but I do appreciate having one.

Hristo Botev
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Re: DIY Dishwasher Detergent?

Post by Hristo Botev »

@SwB: Sorry, just saw this. No, we've not yet given it a try. We've now fully incorporated homemade spray cleaners, deodorant, and toothpaste; and up next is bar soap and laundry detergent. But a homemade dishwasher detergent is something I still want to get around to, eventually; and I'd still love to hear of any tried-and-true recipes.

white belt
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Re: DIY Dishwasher Detergent?

Post by white belt »

SavingWithBabies wrote:
Sat Sep 25, 2021 9:17 pm
I've been thinking about having a dishwasher. We're renting and one came with it. Our prior rental came with one too. I mostly likely because of everything around washing the dishes. I still have to clean them off fairly well but I have a big dishwasher to put them all in instead of having to play the stacking game with a dish drying rack. We still have one of those too of course. It wouldn't be so bad with one or two people but with a family, it's nice having the dishwasher. We actually run it every other day unless family is visiting. One of my chores is the evening dishes and it just makes it faster too. I could definitely live without one but I do appreciate having one.
For what it's worth, I'm not convinced that a mechanical dishwasher saves much time when you consider the time involved with rinsing, loading, running, then unloading the washer. You accomplish all of those steps in one go with handwashing and it's very easy to clean items if you do it right after finishing a meal rather than waiting until the end of the day when the food is stuck on. I don't have kids but I do live in a household with 3 other people and we rarely use the dishwasher. I find the most critical thing is an adequately sized dish drying rack (we currently have two drying racks, but even then things start to get out of hand if people are using lots of large pots/pans/bowls at one time). A mechanical dishwasher also can lead to tensions if it is used by multiple people since you might end up with mixed clean/dirty loads or the same person always being stuck unloading it every time.

I've thought a lot about how to improve the system. I think the best solution would be something that combines a dish drying rack and shelf so that you don't have to bother putting the most frequently used items back into cabinets. See David Holmgren's kitchen: https://youtu.be/ss1BjW2kSNs?t=216

A market/consumer solution might be something like this: https://www.amazon.com/Ace-Teah-Drying- ... L6NW2?th=1

I grew up with a dishwasher in my house and didn't really ever have to deal with doing my own dishes until I got to college, so I actually think in the long run it would've been more beneficial for my development if my parents had forced me to do my own dishes. I do recall having to unload the dishwasher regularly, which I still despise doing to this day. For some reason being able to break up the dish cleaning process into manageable chunks after each meal is more enjoyable to me than having to batch it all together at once.

white belt
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Re: DIY Dishwasher Detergent?

Post by white belt »

white belt wrote:
Wed Sep 29, 2021 5:12 pm
A market/consumer solution might be something like this: https://www.amazon.com/Ace-Teah-Drying- ... L6NW2?th=1
I did end up getting one of those drying racks from Amazon at a 50% discount and after using it for a few weeks, I can confirm that it has greatly reduced friction when washing/drying dishes in a household with 4 people. It also provides much more counter space which is essential in a small kitchen that gets a lot of utilization.

SavingWithBabies
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Location: Midwest, USA

Re: DIY Dishwasher Detergent?

Post by SavingWithBabies »

We came back to making our own dishwasher detergent. Currently using a recipe that is basically:

- 2-3 parts baking soda
- 1 part citric acid
- 1 to a bit more salt
- couple of pumps of dawn blue dishwashing detergent

I was putting in about a tablespoon of the above powder and more detergent however we mostly rinse our dishes and my wife used less and all seemed fine. So trying to use less -- maybe 1/2 a teaspoon of power and couple of pumps (I like to use liquid soap pump containers for dishwashing detergent).

We do like the shelf drying idea but the dishwasher comes with our rental and we're just using what we have for now instead of acquiring more things.

Also for our small kitchen, the space savings of having the dishes out of the way helps. And typically one of us does the washing/loading and the other the unloading so it makes that job easier to split up in a sense?

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