Okay, that might be exaggerating a bit. It’s a bad habit. So, I tried the most popular homemade dishwasher detergent recipe yesterday. Equal parts of Borax and Baking Soda in the dispenser, and vinegar as the rinse aid. It was a diaster. Oh, it cleaned fine, but there was a thick white powdery residue on the dishes. I know we have hard water, so I thought it was probably that, and decided to run the dishwasher again with my regular detergent to get the powder off. IT DIDN’T COME OFF. There is still a ton of residue over everything. So my dishwasher is going through another cycle with just vinegar in it. I’m crossing my fingers that it works. It appears I’m going to have to research this a bit more. Apparently I need something a little more involved then just those 2 ingredients.
Edited to add: The vinegar worked. I’m still working on a less powdery combination though.
Hi, I used Ecover tablets and some calgon – didn’t know how bad it was. It left a horribly thick white residue on everything in my dishwasher, including the dishwasher. I have run vinigar through 3 times and it still won’t come off. Do you have any suggestions. My dishwasher is new.
I hope it is not ruined. I am tempted to run cascade to see if it will clean it out.
How frustrating! I found cascade didn’t work for me, the vinegar did, but I did put in a LOT of vinegar. Like 3-4 cups of it, and ran it through an extra long cycle. Maybe some jet dry would work? I know they have a dishwasher cleaner, I wonder if that would help? I hope you can find a solution!
for dishwasher recipe, i use equal parts borax and washing soda, and just add a small squirt of commercial (cascade, sunlight) dishwasher soap in the cup that doesnt have a lid. works great. no residue