Cloudy glass mystery and the dishwasher

It also depends on local conditions (hard water etc), but the pre-measured size is often too large and never too small.

We definitely have hard water. Lots of minerals, mostly iron. Well water in a shallow acquifer. Water treatment at home but it isnā€™t perfect, and Iā€™m not perfect at staying on top of mechanical filtration. I should change filters every three weeks and itā€™s usually more like six.

Our townā€™s municipal water is known to have a high mineral content. I donā€™t love using a rinse aid in the dishwasher, but back when I didnā€™t our drinking glasses were prone to etching.

Our dishwasher(s), over time, have been much gentler on glasses ever since I started adding a rinse agent (Finish liquid) to the dishwasher dispenser. But I canā€™t tell you why this is the case and havenā€™t found an explanation yet that seems satisfactory to me.

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I use tablets as well. We usually rinse everything before putting in the machine. Yesterday, Iā€™ve used 1/2 tablet and everything came out clean.

We have hard water in our region. When compared with our next door neighbour, they use the same cleaning tablets as us, same water source without water softening filters, their glasses, which are more solid than ours, were in good shape. We change our drinking glasses to Duralex recently, I will see how long these will last.

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Another thingā€¦ all the commercial glassware washers Iā€™ve seen have a very short cycle of just a couple of minutes. Iā€™m guessing thatā€™s a totally different process from in-home dishwashers.

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Absolutely - having a separate dishwasher for each kind of item really works better - in a busy restaurant of course. A dishwasher that must be capable of cleaning pots and pans is limited in how gentle it can be on glasses.

In my experience, it happens to all glasses, but tougher better quality ones do last longer.

Itā€™s not only the glassware, but all dishes and cutlery in my experience. Iā€™m sure the shorter cycles do in fact extend the life of all @Midlife. They are pretty awesome machines, and do a generally great job of cleaning. No DW can handle lipstick on the glass rims thoughā€¦

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Normally, I use the economic energy water saving mode, the cycle is nearly 3 hours long. :laughing:

There is a glass mode with my machine, a 30-minute cycle of 45Ā°C / 115Ā°F. Rarely use it.

Yes, I know about the long cycles! Think the best we can all do to extend the looks of our dishes and glassware, is to reduce the amount of detergent. I did use pods at one point that I cut in half, but the next purchase didnā€™t make it easy - the manufacturers donā€™t want to make it easy - they want you to use more product. Appliance technicians are the ones who educated me to use as little product as possible, @naf.

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Oh I use a rinsing agent, all right. I may soak a couple of glasses in a citric acid bath and see if it helps before I buy oxalic acid, I have citric acid. In my photographic history I used Jobo Processor Cleaner, which was really good at mineral deposits in the film processor- and it was food grade.

Same here. Actually he also mentioned the colder economic cycle doesnā€™t kill enough bacteria.

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Yes, it doesnā€™t hurt to try those things, @ewsflash. If the glassware is truly etched, it wonā€™t help; For built up discoloration, oxalic acid is pretty amazing, and can be found at your local pharmacy. A teaspoon is about all you need. But it sounds like a good plan to try citric acid first.

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Yes, I believe that @naf. Sometimes Iā€™ll use a short cycle, but I think the water still comes up to a hot enough temperature. If Iā€™m canning, Iā€™ll use the sanitation cycle on my DW.

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It takes a lot to etch glass, I have the feeling that itā€™s a residue in my case. Also, when I went up a grade witht he Cascade power tabs or whatever the hell they call them, it stopped happening, so there ya go. It didnā€™t get rid of the existing frost, but no new deposit formed. Cascade Platinum worked for me.

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Yes, @ewsflash, your glasses could very well respond to citric or oxalic acid.
My bro and SILā€™s dishes totally responded when I treated their dishes in Arizona. Their water is so bad there, itā€™s totally undrinkable.

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You must be talking about the phoenix area water. Whenever we went to my In-lawsā€™ place Iā€™d drink a bunch of water and my extremities would swell up like mad, they also had a water softener to counteract the mineral deposits on everything, so there was the added sodium, and the chlorine taste was really awful. My mother-in-law was on blood pressure meds, until they got an RO unit installed next to the kitchen sink. No more fluffy extremities and MIL doesnā€™t have to take BP meds to this day, and sheā€™s almost 91.
Tucson water isnā€™t near as good as it used to be back in the days of pure well water, but itā€™s not too shabby, mostly. It gets chloriney in late summer, but carbon filtration takes care of that.

Out little city has exceedingly hard water, about 42 grains. We have no water softener. Every time our dishwasher is used, at least 1/2 cup of white vinegar is added to a small dish we keep on the top rack. The vinegar, mixed slowly with the water and detergent, prevents any hard water deposits on the glassware, etc. They all come out spotless.

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