Make the inside of my 4 year old stainless steel dishwasher sparkle!

October 8, 2014 2:37 PM

I have had my dishwasher for about 4 years and this year the hard water build up has started to be very noticeable inside on the stainless steel interior. There are streaks of white, and spots inside of it, etc etc. It just looks blah. What are your suggestions for products or home remedies that I can use to make the inside of the dishwasher (somewhat) sparkly again?

My dad suggested I put a bowl of white vinegar in the top rack of the dishwasher and run it for a cycle. This didn't even touch it. Getting a soft water system isn't in the budget right now, so I'm hoping there are some great ideas on this thread!

posted by timpanogos to Home & Garden (13 answers total)

Lemishine! Made my 15-year-old dishwasher look brand new.
posted by magicbus at 2:41 PM on October 8, 2014 [3 favorites]

There's stuff like Lemi Shine but it's basically just citric acid. You can get bulk citric acid pretty cheap on Amazon or the kind of hilarious single-serving site cheapcitric.com. Fill your detergent dispenser with it and that should be enough. Also, citric acid is also great for descaling kettles, coffee makers, etc. Oh, and sprinkling a little bit on watermelon is pretty delicous too.
posted by zsazsa at 2:43 PM on October 8, 2014 [2 favorites]

Here's a cute blog post.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 2:44 PM on October 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

Regular use of a cleaner like Lemishine or the one made by Finish. Some people also use citrus Kool-Aid packets as they're mostly citric acid. You may have to do a couple of rounds if you haven't been doing it regularly and have hard water.
posted by quince at 2:47 PM on October 8, 2014

Put the vinegar in the rinse aid compartment.
posted by sexyrobot at 2:52 PM on October 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: @sexyrobot Which one is the rinse aid compartment? Is that the one next to the one where you put detergent in?
posted by timpanogos at 2:55 PM on October 8, 2014

Yep, putting vinegar in the rinse aid compartment will keep it clean after you blast it with Lemishine. You should be able to find a manual for your dishwasher online if you don't know where that is.

There is another product called Dishwasher Magic that I used to clean my dishwasher when I first moved into my apartment. I don't know if it's stronger than Lemishine or not, but they're right next to each other in the dish soap aisle so you can check them both out.
posted by apricot at 3:18 PM on October 8, 2014

Start with a vinegar scrub (literally get in there and use a dish brush and vinegar on it) to clean off accumulated crud. Then maintain with regular vinegar rinses, so the dishwasher does the hard work from now on.
posted by ktkt at 3:28 PM on October 8, 2014

Response by poster: Thank you all! I am set with some great ideas! I appreciate your collective wisdom.
posted by timpanogos at 3:52 PM on October 8, 2014

CLR will clean it nicely.
posted by OkTwigs at 6:46 PM on October 8, 2014

I had a factory-trained repairman over for my washer and he said the best thing was to get a jar of Tang, fill the measuring lid, run it through an empty washer on the regular cycle. Took a couple of runs the first time, and now we run it every month or two.
posted by Runes at 8:32 PM on October 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

I actually use a little plain white vinegar in the rinse aid compartment every time I run a cycle just to stop hard water build up from happening. It also makes my wine glasses super sparkly. You do get a vinegary smell when you open the dishwasher, but it soon dissipates.
posted by nerdfish at 12:47 AM on October 9, 2014 [2 favorites]

You can buy citric acid in bulk from well-stocked natural foods stores. Saw it in my local place just last evening.
posted by Dr. Wu at 5:40 AM on October 9, 2014