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Plastic in the dishwasher


Fat Guy

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I always assumed it was because it doesn't transfer\retain the heat as well as glassware and plates. Those other things continue to dry even after the heating element has cut off because the item stays hot. Plastic cools off almost immediately.

Edited by BadRabbit (log)
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What kind of plastic?

I put those gladware containers in mine. Gets dry. I put in Cambro stuff too. (the clear type). It gets dry.

Cambro does pretty well -- it almost behaves like glass.

I have never had a Gladware container get fully dry in the dishwasher.

Steven A. Shaw aka "Fat Guy"
Co-founder, Society for Culinary Arts & Letters, sshaw@egstaff.org
Proud signatory to the eG Ethics code
Director, New Media Studies, International Culinary Center (take my food-blogging course)

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Plastic doesn't retain the heat of the hot washing water anywhere near as much as ceramic or glass so the water doesn't evaporate as fast on plastic.

This. It's also why the Cambro dries and the Glad doesn't: the plastic from the Cambro holds onto enough heat to evaporate the water.

Chris Hennes
Director of Operations
chennes@egullet.org

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Doesn't it also depend on the dishwasher? My Bosch has no heating element. It dries by evaporation only. Other dishwashers I have had used a heating element and the plastic dried fine but often was deformed from the heat of said element.

Anna Nielsen aka "Anna N"

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The thing about a Bosch -- I have one too -- is that it just doesn't dry well in general. It's a beautiful piece of equipment, very quiet, and it does very well on cleaning. But for drying, not so great -- you have to do a lot of manual toweling as you unload. My old KitchenAid did a great job drying overall but still never got top-rack plastic stuff dry and if you put it on the bottom rack you ruined it.

Steven A. Shaw aka "Fat Guy"
Co-founder, Society for Culinary Arts & Letters, sshaw@egstaff.org
Proud signatory to the eG Ethics code
Director, New Media Studies, International Culinary Center (take my food-blogging course)

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My dishwasher has an energy-saver cycle during which the heating element is not used after washing. I air-dry my plastic stuff in a dish rack, and generally towel-dry the corners/outer edges which trap water.

Is there a reason why you need your plastic ware to dry in the dishwasher?

Karen Dar Woon

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