Are these people crazy, or have I been washing dishes wrong all these years?

March 12, 2007 5:49 PM

Things You Overhear That Make No Sense Filter: Why would you wash your glasses first?

I overheard some people talking about washing dishes for the first time in awhile because their machine was broken. One of them was telling the other that their partner doesn't know how to wash dishes because they didn't wash the glasses first. The second person agreed that, obviously, you always wash the glasses first.

Why?

posted by joannemerriam to Home & Garden (43 answers total)

Because you want as little grease in the water as possible when you wash glasses, and they tend to be cleaner. If you do other dishes first, the glasses don't get as clean as possible. But really, it doesn't make that much of a difference.
posted by owhydididoit at 5:54 PM on March 12, 2007

You want to wash the glasses in the cleanest dishwater possible.
posted by sexymofo at 5:54 PM on March 12, 2007

In general, you go in order from cleanest to dirtiest so you don't transfer the dirtiness to the cleaner 'ware. This goes double if you're washing in a basin of water. It will get contaminated with scummy oil as you go along.
posted by nomad at 5:55 PM on March 12, 2007

Ditto on nomad's suggestion. Glasses, silverware, then plates, pots and pans. Also, if you fill the icky pots and pans with soapy water first, they're usually not as icky by the time you get to them.
posted by meindee at 5:59 PM on March 12, 2007

>In general, you go in order from cleanest to dirtiest so you don't transfer the dirtiness to the cleaner 'ware.

And the rule in my home economics class was start with things that go in your mouth (glasses, cutlery) to things you eat from (plates) to things you prepare and serve with.
posted by philfromhavelock at 6:00 PM on March 12, 2007

Best answer: I was always told to wash the things that touch your mouth first, then the things that touch the things that touch your mouth, then the rest. That means silverware and glasses first, then plates and bowls, then cooking utensils and pots and pans. I'm not sure if this was because of the grease issue mentioned above, or because of concerns about bacterial contamination. Either way, it is better for the glasses and silverware to be washed in the hotter and cleaner water at the beginning, rather than in the dirty and lukewarm water later.
posted by Forktine at 6:01 PM on March 12, 2007 [1 favorite]

I'd say that if you're a real paranoid germ-o-phobe -- you might be trying to rinse off stuff that could be potential mediums for bacterial growth.. Say you drink a glass of milk, and then let it dry and harden cuz you don't do your dishes every day.. that hardened milk crust could contain tons of bacteria that might not be washed away by machine spraying. Here's some evidence that this may be true. http://www.physorg.com/news91727028.html

That link actually suggests that you might want to wash off dirty forks especially well.... so it's not just glasses.. I think anything that has a surface that might not get sprayed clean by a machine is potentially a bacteria farm...
posted by mhh5 at 6:02 PM on March 12, 2007

I always thought it was because glasses being clear kind of magnify any little speck in the multiple reflections. They just look bad. Do them first and they might come out impressively sparkling.
posted by Listener at 6:04 PM on March 12, 2007

Best answer: Some of us change the water. I wash dishes in three changes of water: pots first / change / dishes / change / glasses.

I actually straw-polled this as part of the research for a (never produced) TV project titled 'The Ritual of the Habitual' which would have examined the tiny rituals of everyday life and their rationales. Other examples included what order you wash yourself in when showering, and the hierarchy of cleaning cloths in the average home as described by Alan Bennett talking about his mother.

The poll showed that only about 50% of people wash the glasses first but everyone else had a good reason for not doing so (eg don't want to pile stuff on top of glasses when air drying).
posted by unSane at 6:12 PM on March 12, 2007

I would think it was to have the hottest water for them so they can air dry and look spotless. Or, in my case, because they hang out of the way (as do saucepans) and I can fill the basket with everything else.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 6:23 PM on March 12, 2007

I do the glasses first because they're most fragile.
posted by futility closet at 6:31 PM on March 12, 2007

Response by poster: Okay, I don't work from a basin of water when I wash dishes; I soak, then empty the sink and scrub everything with soap, putting it in the other side as I go, then I rinse with fresh hot water.

I'm so glad there's a reason for the glasses first rule, though. They were so self-assured that I thought there had to be a good reason, but I couldn't think of one.
posted by joannemerriam at 6:32 PM on March 12, 2007

A data point; my wife says the exact same thing about my dishwashing skills. Words are spoken when I don't wash the glasses first. And I think she has a point. Her reasoning? Glasses don't really have much grease and grime and dirt on them - just a little bit of residue of milk or orange juice or beer or whatever. Glasses are generally quite clean to begin with.

The skillet I cooked the steaks in, on the other hand - filled with burnt crusty bits and oil and fats. I put that thing in the dishwater, it turns brown. So I leave it to last, so the brown, yukky water doesn't "pollute" the other, generally cleaner dishes.

My mandated order is glasses -> cutlery -> crockery -> cooking utensils.
posted by Jimbob at 7:01 PM on March 12, 2007

I had no idea people washed dishes in standing water until reading this thread. I wash all my dishes in running water; I thought that was how people do it.
posted by birdie birdington at 7:14 PM on March 12, 2007 [1 favorite]

Only people who don't pay for their water bill.
posted by smackfu at 7:21 PM on March 12, 2007

(derail) I let the water run too, but if you turn it off when you don't need it on, it adds up to less than it takes to fill the sink otherwise.

As far as the order goes, I'm pretty random.
posted by starman at 7:25 PM on March 12, 2007

Jeeze. I think some of ya'll are nuts. I sure hope that you're using gray water recovery if you're throwing that much good water away.

My girlfriend gets an earful when I catch her washing more than 2 dishes or so with running water...
posted by TomMelee at 7:28 PM on March 12, 2007

So that you can see to wash the actual dishes.....

OK, surely I'm not the only one to read that incorrectly.
posted by kjs4 at 8:14 PM on March 12, 2007

I had no idea people washed dishes in standing water until reading this thread. I wash all my dishes in running water; I thought that was how people do it.

You've never wondered what the sink plug was for?

What do you do with the detergent if you're washing dishes under running water? Put a squirt on every dish?

*mind boggles*

I think we may have teased apart that final schizm in the human race. It's not men and women. It's not rich and poor. It's not black and white. It's running versus still water.
posted by Jimbob at 8:37 PM on March 12, 2007 [2 favorites]

Jimbob, sponge. Soap on the sponge. That's the only freebie I'm giving out tonight.

It's not men and women. It's not rich and poor. It's not black and white. It's running versus still water.

Or the self-righteous versus everyone else.
posted by birdie birdington at 9:01 PM on March 12, 2007 [5 favorites]

I'm slowly transitioning to the wash-first-in-basin method from the running water method. I think I used way less soap in the running water method though yes, I'm sure I used more water. In the running water method I never paid attention to what gets washed first but as I transition to the basin method, I see the rationale for doing glassware first (wash water is cleanest then). Also, this transition is mostly because my boyfriend does the basin method and I can see the hurt in his eyes when I do the running water method and I really can't bear it. Clearly, lots of us have dishwashing methods as negotiation points in our relationships.
posted by otherwordlyglow at 9:18 PM on March 12, 2007

My wife washes the glasses first and I do the same because she says they smell otherwise. In fact, if I don't rinse them thoroughly, she'll rinse them again before using them.
posted by atchafalaya at 9:28 PM on March 12, 2007

Another reason that I wash the glasses first is because if you have the slightest amount of grease in the glass, your champagne will be almost immediately flat and your beer head not long after. This also happens if you don't rinse them thoroughly and leave behind traces of detergent.
posted by tellurian at 11:45 PM on March 12, 2007

I think water's a lot cheaper and more abundant in some parts of the world than in others. We don't hear a lot about water shortages in Oregon, nor about the need to conserve except in times of drought or heat wave. If you individually hand wash each dish as you use it, don't you inevitably have to use running water? In my experience in a two-person household with a small number of dishes, that's the best way to do it.
posted by croutonsupafreak at 11:57 PM on March 12, 2007

The running water thing is a little more mind-boggling if you are living in an area with water restrictions.
posted by jacalata at 12:10 AM on March 13, 2007

The advantage of using a basin (besides water savings) is that you can soak off grime, rather than have to scrub at it. If you live alone and wash your dishes immediately after each meal, then there is no need to soak them, and you probably won't even save water by using a basin. If you have dishes from several people, and maybe they have stacked up all day, or into a second day (or even much longer, as my roommates in college would do, filthy beasts that we were), then soaking in a basin saves both water and effort. And with dishes that have been sitting out longer, concerns over bacterial contamination become much more real than when washing just-used dishes.
posted by Forktine at 1:29 AM on March 13, 2007

I used to leave the hot water running as well but have recently tried filling the sink with hot water and washing from there. However, rinsing is difficult this way. I don't have a double sink so if I wash a glass in the hot water, I then have to turn on the cold for a second to rinse it off. The hot water in the sink then gets cold quickly and I have to keep letting water out so the sink doesn't overflow.

As for the soap, I use one of these. You fill it with soap and when you press the sponge to a dish, it suds up.

But somebody please tell me the best way to wash dishes in a small sink.
posted by gfrobe at 1:53 AM on March 13, 2007

But somebody please tell me the best way to wash dishes in a small sink.

That is what those rectangular plastic tubs are for. Either fill the sink with hot soapy water and put the soapy dishes into the tub get rinsed after the washing is done, or fill the tub with hot soapy water and put the soapy dishes to be rinsed into the sink. (Depending on your kitchen layout, sometimes two tubs works even better, but with one you are good to go.)
posted by Forktine at 2:57 AM on March 13, 2007

I'm with futility closet. I wash the glasses first (usually) because otherwise when I'm banging pans about, they get smashed!

And what's with the rinsing stuff in cold water? It takes forever to get things dry that way (and the longer you leave stuff out, the more bacteria-ridden it can get). I just leave the hot running the whole time and rinse under that. Wasteful, possibly, but not too much as I've become a very quick washer-upper :) It also means drying up takes all of a minute or two meaning I can use all the spare time planting trees and making money to donate to Greenpeace and run my air anti-carbonizer.
posted by wackybrit at 4:03 AM on March 13, 2007

I grew up in the middle of a drought and still run the water when I wash. Dishwater is just totally uck, and I am not sticking my hands it. Sorry. There are magic sponges with empty handles into which you pour the soap.

Glasses first because they are fragile.
posted by dame at 6:20 AM on March 13, 2007

I fill the sink as I go along, so I always start with the cutlery, because I can wash that in a tiny layer of water and rinse it under the still running tap. Then there's a bit more water, and I wash the plates (and rinse them). Glasses and cups go next (oh no, they'll get all the plate-dirt!), and at that point there is usually enough water that I stop the tap, but I still rinse the glasses/cups and later the bowls/pots/pans. I just have to turn the tap back on for a bit.

Anyway, the point of this is: I noticed that I do need to turn the tap off before I'm done doing dishes, which means that if I had let it running the whole time, I would have used more than a sink full of water.
posted by easternblot at 6:25 AM on March 13, 2007

I wash glasses first while the water is still running to fill up the sink - you can rinse glasses under the tab until you have filled the sink...I never rinse any dishes other than glasses. Guess you might run into problems if you have a lot of glasses to wash but you have enough time to do several this way.
posted by koahiatamadl at 6:42 AM on March 13, 2007

I will not let anything that hasn't been rinsed even make it into the washing up bowl, so our dishwater is as clean as it could be. I couldn't stand dirty plates sitting around for hours. Plates have to be hot rinsed first, and big dirty pans don't even make it into the bowl until last. That said, we rarely have any of those as we don't eat things that make much mess usually :)
posted by wackybrit at 6:43 AM on March 13, 2007

Sweet jesus, running water? In my part of the world, we're being cajoled into not washing people under running water for more than 4 minutes, let alone doing dishes under it. It's a finite resource. That said...

I was taught glasses first because it results in less spotting on the glass than later in the wash. My SO is much more higgelty-piggelty about it and you can definitly see the difference. The ones he washes look like Dalmations. Let it also be said that my glasses form the bottom layer of my stacks when air drying, and I've never had a breakage.
posted by Jilder at 7:09 AM on March 13, 2007

Don't you remember those old detergent commercials, where someone would have just finished washing all their pots and pans and realized one glass was left? They were all "oh no!" until they realized that their detergent is SO GREAT that they could wash their glass in their greasy pots and pans water and the glass would still have no spots.

Because of this, I always thought you washed glasses first to avoid spots. Other dishes that were not clear would not show spots anyway.

As for the running versus standing water, I don't see the BFD either way. You have to run water at least a little in order to rinse anyway. With everyday dishes (no scrubbing of caked-on stuff), and you're careful only to let it run when you need it, I bet the water used is about the same. Although I understand some people do not rinse, and while I'm sure that uses much less water, that's gross.
posted by lampoil at 7:44 AM on March 13, 2007

I will not let anything that hasn't been rinsed even make it into the washing up bowl, so our dishwater is as clean as it could be.

Wait, what? You rinse it first? You realize that is what people who leave the water running do, only they don't put it in something after? (Sorry to hijack, but it does seem the original question has been answered.)
posted by dame at 7:50 AM on March 13, 2007

If you choose your detergent carefully, you don't need to rinse at all. Except glasses. So I start the washing process with the glasses first when the bowl is still only a little full. So the rinsing hot water on the glasses is also used to fill up the soapy plastic tub in the sink. (Always use a plastic tub in the sink because it makes the hole narrower so you'll get deeper water for the same amount used) It's not grey water reuse, but you do get to use the rinse water as wash water immediately afterwards. With a typical stack of dirty dishes, I'll be finished with the glasses long before the sink gets full.
posted by talitha_kumi at 8:36 AM on March 13, 2007

Hm! Count me amongst the folks who don't wash in standing water. But, I have well water and so don't have to pay for my per-gallon usage. Still, I'll move one day and will be better-informed. I love AskMe!
posted by DWRoelands at 10:10 AM on March 13, 2007

When I was in the Army and did lots of KP, I evolved a low-water-use method for really dirty pots and pans (e.g., with baked-on ketchupy meatloaf). It needs at least two and preferably three sinks.

Scrape off and toss the loose stuff and put the pots in a deep sink. Add lots of soap and fill the sink with the hottest possible water. Let it sit for 15 minutes.

When the water is cool enough to get your hands in, scrub each pot over or inside the sink with a very coarse stainless steel wool scrubber, removing the all the encrustation. Don't worry about grease. Leave all the crusts in the sink. As you finish each item, put it in a second sink.

Using a large strainer, dip out the scrubbed-off food from the first sink. Put a fine mesh screen in the bottom, drain the sink and wash it down.

Put the pots back in the sink, add dishwashing soap and fill the sink with hot water. Let stand for 15 minutes.

Remove one pot at a time and finish the cleaning over a second, empty sink, using steel wool and a sponge. Then rinse it in very hot water and put it aside to air-dry. A pot is clean when (and only when) you rub your fingertip over the surface and it bounces along rather than sliding.

It's a bit more convenient to have separate sinks for each soaking. You can of course combine sinks 1 and 2, but you really do need 2 sinks, one to continue soaking to loosen the grease and another to do the final wash and rinse.
posted by KRS at 10:53 AM on March 13, 2007

I don't use standing water because it's disgusting and gets full of bits of food and whatnot. I shudder at the very thought. So dirty! And you still have to run water to rinse, so I don't see what the point is, really. I put soap on the sponge, pick up an item, and scrub/rinse, put in the dishrack, pick up the next, etc., add more soap when the sponge isn't soapy anymore. Oh, and I do glasses first because of the way our sink is oriented and because I like washing them the most and like washing pans the least.
posted by agregoli at 11:01 AM on March 13, 2007

I guess I'm the weirdo here because I always save the glasses for last. I wash all the dishes, bowls and the like first, them put them away once dry. Only once that's all out of the way do I do the glasses. This way the more fragile glasses are not all piled in on the drying rack with the heavier plates and bowls... thus less likely to fall over or break.

I'm relatively certain that Kim and Aggie would agree that's the way to do it!
posted by RoseovSharon at 12:42 PM on March 13, 2007

I don't understand what this fuss is about washing dishes. Just scrape off any visible gunk, and re-use. I once went camping for a week using the same cup, bowl, spoon, and fork. Yeah, you rinse it out, but it's not something to obsess over.
posted by indigo4963 at 12:59 PM on March 13, 2007

Best answer: If you don't wash your glasses first, it's hard to see when the rest of the dishes are clean.
posted by Caviar at 7:08 PM on March 13, 2007