From making mummies to baking cakes, baking soda has various uses. The history of baking soda is over 3500 years old.
It is a great cleaning agent too. So, the question is, can you use it for washing dishwashers with dishes? And how does it work? Keep reading to get detailed knowledge on the topic.
Putting baking soda in dishwasher with dishes
Baking soda can be a great household alternative to dishwashing soaps. Just 3-4 spoons of baking soda can clean the all the dishes just like the dishwasher soap. It works best when used with vinegar. You can also use baking soda to clean a dirty dishwasher.
If you rank the useful household products, baking soda must get one of the top ranks. Not just the household, it is an essential product of your toothpaste to the cookie you love. Isn’t it pretty surprising that one single item has that many uses?
So, what actually is baking soda? How does it work? And how good is it to clean the dishes in your dishwasher? We will cover them all in this article.
Baking soda is simply sodium bicarbonate. That’s NaHCO3. It produces carbon dioxide and water when you heat it to 80 degrees Celsius. The carbon dioxide makes the cake fluffy.
However, let’s get back to the cleaning stuff. Can you put baking soda in dishwasher with dishes? Yes, when baking soda is mixed with water, it can easily clean the dishes.
Baking soda can remove all the stubborn dirt from any surface.
So how does it work to clean the dishes in a dishwasher? Baking soda is actually a salt. And it becomes alkyl when mixed with water. It has some excellent cleaning properties.
Firstly, as it is alkyl, it removes dirt, oil, and grease from any surface without hurting it. It does not have any damaging property to metal, tiles, or glass. So, you can use it in the dishwasher without any fear.
There are more. It has a fantastic smell-absorbing property. That’s why it is kept in the fridge to absorb the bad smells of all the food items. So, how does it absorb the odors?
It just does a chemical reaction with the smell particles of the air. In dishwashers, it can also absorb the smell of dishwashers.
Moreover, the antibacterial property of baking soda is even more powerful than your dishwasher soap in some categories. So, you can safely use it to clean your dishwasher. Cleaning with baking soda can protect you from food-borne diseases.
So how do you use baking soda to clean your dirty dishes? You can spread baking soda on the bottom of the dishwasher. This should be enough to wash your moderately dirty dishes. (Keep reading, there is a detailed guide later on in the article)
However, it’s not that you should only use the dishwasher when you cannot find your dishwasher soap for dishwashing. You can use them both together to get a hyper-clean effect. Use 3-4 drops of dishwasher soap with baking soda and start the cleaning cycle.
Vinegar and baking soda are other great combinations to clean your dirty dish and dishwasher. Vinegar is acetic and helpful to remove all the dirt and stains, and the dishwasher binds with the stubborn stains and removes them. Both of them are good antibacterials and smell reducers.
However, it is not okay to use them together. They react quickly and make CO2 and lots of bubbles, making cleaning harder.
What other alternatives to baking soda are when you do not have dishwasher soap? Note that dishwasher soaps must be food safe. Baking soda and vinegar are also food safe and can be useable for dish cleaning. You can even taste baking soda without issue (it’s a bit salty).
Detergent does pretty good to clean. But it may not be as food safe as dishwasher soap.
Is baking soda bad for dishwashers?
Baking soda does not harm dishwashers. They do not cause any damage to the rigid material, but it cleans off the dirt and grease attached to the dishwashers. It also does not harm the color of any material.
Baking soda has a corrosive nature as it has alkyl properties, but it’s not so corrosive that it can damage hard material.
Baking soda is suitable for your dishwasher. It removes the food smell from the dishwasher and cleans all the stubborn food or oil stain on the dishwasher.
Sometimes, food particles can get stuck in different parts of the dishwasher, causing nasty smells from your dishwasher. Baking soda also takes care of them easily.
Therefore, you do not need to worry about the dishwasher while using baking soda for cleaning.
What does baking soda do in the dishwasher?
When you put baking soda in the bottom of the dishwasher and start the cleaning cycle, the baking soda mixes up with the hot water and spreads all the places in the dishwasher.
When the baking soda adds to water, it becomes corrosive, which helps to clean all the dish and dishwasher surfaces.
As we mentioned, baking soda has corrosive nature. It surrounds the stains and removes them from any surface. Hot water makes the work easier by melting the grease and oil. When you add a dishwasher with the baking soda, the baking soda becomes more effective.
Dishwasher soap and baking soda are both alkyls. The dishwasher just removes the stains and bacteria from the dishes. But baking soda does a pretty good job breaking down the bacterial cells.
Baking soda and vinegar is another excellent combo to clean the dishwasher effectively. But you need to use them separately to get the best result.
Baking soda does not do any damage to any parts of the dishwasher. The dishwasher’s drain pipe is a place where you can not clean easily. But food particles can get stuck on the pipe, enhancing microbial growth. That releases sewage-like smells from your dishwasher.
But baking powder removes the bacteria when it goes through the drain pipe.
So, considering the fantastic benefits, we can say it’s an excellent product to use on your dishwasher, even if you have dishwashing soap in your house.
How much baking soda to put in the dishwasher with dishes?
3-4 spoons of baking soda are enough for regular dishwashing cycles. That’s about ¼ cup of baking soda. Regular dishwashing does not need too much baking powder. ¼ cup of baking soda will be enough to clean one batch of dishes.
If you have many dirty dishes to clean, you can use some more baking soda without any issues. When you clean the dishwasher without any dish, you can use one cup of baking soda and vinegar.
Baking powder will remove the stains of the chamber of your dishwasher, but that much baking powder is needed to clean the drain pipe part. A high concentration of baking powder will remove the bacterial infestation of the drain pipe.
The drain pipe becomes problematic when using the dishwasher for a long time. Odor-causing and harmful bacteria can infest the drain pipe. If you have issues with the drain pipe, you can remove the line and clean it thoroughly with a brush, baking powder, vinegar, etc.
How to wash dishes with baking soda in the dishwasher?
Baking soda does a fantastic job of cleaning the dishes. The good thing is that cleaning the dishes with baking soda is also very easy. There are no complicated steps or vital things to remember when using baking powder to clean your dishwasher.
Vinegar adds more power to the baking powder. As vinegar and baking powder are both common elements of our kitchen, the possibility is you can find both. So, let’s go through some simple steps to clean the dishes using baking powder and vinegar.
- Insert all the dishes into the dishwasher.
- Add one cup of vinegar to one bowl or plate.
- Start a cleaning cycle with maximum temperature.
- After one cycle, add half a cup of baking powder to the bottom of the dishwasher.
- Start another cleaning cycle, and after the process, you get shiny and fresh, clean dishes.
Final Thoughts
Baking soda is pretty effective in cleaning your dishes in the dishwasher. The corrosive nature of baking soda removes all the dirt, oil, and grease from the plates and removes the bad smells and microbes from the dishes. You can also use baking soda to clean the dishwasher too.