---
title: 'I was right about dishwasher pods, and now I can prove it'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=DAX2_mPr9W8'
video_id: 'DAX2_mPr9W8'
date: 2026-06-28
duration_sec: 2486
---

# I was right about dishwasher pods, and now I can prove it

> Source: [I was right about dishwasher pods, and now I can prove it](https://youtube.com/watch?v=DAX2_mPr9W8)

## Summary

The video discusses the host's long-standing preference for loose dishwasher powder over pre-dosed pods and tablets, a preference now vindicated by the development and independent testing of a new powder formulation. The host explains the importance of using a pre-wash detergent dose and purging cold water from the pipes before starting a North American dishwasher, and demonstrates these principles with temperature logging and a peanut butter soil test. The video concludes that high-quality powder detergents can match or exceed the performance of premium pods, offering users more control and less waste.

### Key Points

- **Why loose powder is preferred** [1:42] — Dishwashers are designed for two separate detergent doses (pre-wash and main wash). Pods force a single dose, disrespecting this fundamental design.
- **Pre-wash water and fats** [3:29] — Fats and oils don't mix with plain water, so the pre-wash is ineffective without detergent. Adding detergent to the pre-wash allows it to absorb fats immediately, reducing the load on the main wash.
- **Using the pre-wash cup** [4:25] — Many detergent dispensers have a pre-wash cup that isn't sealed, allowing detergent to fall into the pre-wash water. This is the intended use, but manufacturers often bury this information in owner's manuals.
- **Origin of the new powder** [8:37] — The idea for a charity-focused dishwasher detergent came from John Green in 2022. It was developed by Matt Keasey (Green Llama) and sold through Good Store to benefit the Coral Reef Alliance.
- **Independent testing results** [9:50] — Blinded ASTM testing showed that the new powder matches or exceeds the cleaning performance of premium pods in nearly every category, with slightly better overall scores and no spotting issues.
- **Powder control and dosing** [12:56] — Loose powder allows users to adjust the dose based on soil load and water hardness. The standard dose is one tablespoon, which performs as well as a premium pod.
- **Importance of hot water fill** [16:25] — North American dishwashers (120V) rely on hot water from the supply because their heating elements are underpowered. Purging cold water from the pipes before starting ensures effective cleaning.
- **Enzymes in modern detergents** [19:46] — Modern detergents use enzymes like protease and amylase that require water at ~60°C (140°F) to be maximally effective. A cold fill prevents reaching this temperature in time.
- **Peanut butter test demo** [20:47] — A temperature-logging experiment compared cold vs. hot water fill. The hot fill finished cleaning peanut butter ~20 minutes earlier than the cold fill, dramatically extending the effective wash time.
- **High temp wash and cycle options** [30:53] — The 'high temp wash' option on this machine changes the cycle to include four pre-washes (the last heated). This dramatically improves performance and is recommended for older machines or stubborn soils.
- **Pre-wash detergent test** [35:38] — Adding just a teaspoon of detergent to the pre-wash dramatically improved fat removal, with butter dislodging in ~60 seconds vs. 5 minutes without. The drained pre-wash water was much cloudier, showing more food soil removal.

### Conclusion

Loose powder dishwasher detergent can match or outperform premium pods when properly formulated, offering users control over dosing and reducing waste. Proper technique (pre-wash detergent and purging cold water) is essential for optimal results, especially with North American 120V dishwashers.

## Transcript

Hello and welcome to No Effort November,
a series of videos for the month 
of November where no effort is made.
And you know where I never make any effort?
Washing my dishes.
That's because I have an automatic 
dishwasher at home which does that for me!
And when it comes to the detergent products 
which are sold for use in home dishwashers,
I would like to say the following:
I was right!
And thanks to the work of a bunch of cool people,
today I can prove it.
How?
With this.
That's right. There's a new dishwasher powder in town!
And I was... very slightly involved in its development.
Now, of course, I will tell you where 
and how you can get your hands on this,
but this video isn't just
 to announce the existence of a new product.
You see, sending this formulation to an 
independent testing lab has vindicated all of my hot takes
and crotchety Midwestern stubbornness 
when it comes to pre-dosed dishwasher pods and tablets.
And because of that, I would very much like to 
tell you the story of how this came to be
and what we have learned through sending it 
and some big name products through blind ASTM testing.
I'll also show you why it's so important for those of us in 
North America to purge the cold water from the pipes
by running the kitchen faucet until the water 
comes out piping hot before starting the dishwasher.
I've only ever explained that 
and never demonstrated the difference it makes.
And I've cooked up a great demo to show you.
It involves temperature logging 
and copious amounts of peanut butter.
So, stick around for that!
But first, let's talk detergent.
For those of you who may not be familiar with 
why I strongly prefer loose powders for dishwashers,
well, quite simply, that's because the standard washing program 
in the vast majority of dishwashers out there
is designed to accommodate two separate doses of detergent.
A small one first and a bigger one later.
Why might that be?
Well, you know that little compartment 
you're supposed to put the detergent in?
The entire reason your dishwasher has that thing is so that it can delay when detergent gets added to the washing water.
It wants to do that because when the machine starts washing,
food particles which dissolve 
easily in water like sugars and syrups,
or that are easily knocked off your dirty dishes, like those chunks of tomato and the sauce from your pasta dinner,
will cause the water inside 
the dishwasher to get dirty very quickly.
And this means your dishwasher will have to 
drain that water out and replace it with clean water
after a relatively short period of time,
 often just 10 or 15 minutes.
That initial fill of water is called the pre-wash because it happens before the wash.
It will handle the easiest to clean stuff, but that's it.
And so it's the detergent dispenser's job to make sure 
the product you added to the machine
so it can mix with the water and create a cleaning solution to tackle the really difficult stuck on food
doesn't get sent down the 
drain right away with the pre-wash water.
That's the whole point of the dispenser!
The dishwasher needs to control 
when the detergent actually gets released.
And in doing so, it can assure there's 
detergent in the water during the longest, hottest part of its wash program.
Now, here's my little bugaboo:
the pre-wash water can do a lot,
but some food soils, particularly oils and fats, 
don't like to mix with plain water.
And because of that little incompatibility problem, 
those soils will be relatively unaffected by the pre-wash.
But, what if you were to put a little extra detergent 
in the machine outside of the dispenser?
That detergent would mix with the pre-wash water and thus it would allow it to absorb those fats and oils right away.
Then when the machine drains the pre-wash water away,
at least some of the fats and oils on your plates will have left the machine before the main part of the wash cycle has even begun.
That's going to reduce 
the amount of work the main wash detergent has to do,
potentially allowing for a smaller main wash dose.
Well, it turns out 
that's exactly what you're supposed to be doing!
Notice how this detergent dispenser has two cups.
One is labeled main wash,
and the other smaller cup says pre-wash.
The pre-wash cup isn't actually sealed by the lid.
In fact, it's got holes in the lid
so whatever you put in there is just going to fall right out 
once you close the door and mix with the pre-wash water.
Sometimes instead of two separate cups like this, 
you'll find a little divot for extra detergent.
And other times, you won't find a marked spot for it 
because dishwasher manufacturers have, for some reason,
decided to stop helping people 
understand what their machines actually do.
And if they make any mention of pre-wash detergent at all, 
it's buried in the owner's manual somewhere.
But let me just state this plainly: 
If your dishwasher has a detergent dispenser,
which I'm fairly certain it does,
then it's going to be doing a pre-wash 
on at least some of its cycles.
Because if it didn't, there would be no reason 
for that detergent dispenser to be there!
It would just have a spot which says, "Put detergent here."
You know if they could get away with removing that costly moving part, they absolutely would.
But they haven't because the fundamentals of 
automatic dishwashing have not changed.
Yet, most detergent products on the market today by forcing people into a single predetermined dosing structure
disrespect those fundamentals.
And that is just one of the reasons 
I'm so cranky about the dang pods.
That's why I made my first video on dishwashers.
There's a lot of people out there 
who think dishwashers can't clean well,
often to the point of 
refusing to use them even if they have one at home.
Yet, I have never had a dishwasher 
which couldn't clean practically anything I threw at it!
And I've used all kinds: 
from old machines from the early '90s
to landlord specials of various vintages
to mediocre machines like this Frigidaire
and to high-end machines 
like the KitchenAid I now have at home.
And with just a single exception,
all it took to get great results was using cheap store-brand powders,
using them as the machines expected with a little bit of pre-wash detergent in addition to the main detergent dose
and selecting the normal wash cycle.
The single "bad" machine in my life required the use of its heavy wash cycle for consistent results,
but it could still wash great so long as you selected that.
And hence explains my skepticism that the supposedly superior pods are really any better or worth the extra cost.
Yet, after making those videos,
while many people reported that switching to powder and using some pre-wash detergent made a huge difference for them,
others couldn't get satisfactory results with powder 
but could with the higher-end detergent pods out there.
The biggest issue seemed to be 
a residue left at the end of the wash.
That can be a sign of using too much detergent,
but when the same people reported 
they don't have that problem with pods...
well, that gives some credence 
to the idea that the pods are a superior product.
But here's my issue:
Detergents are just chemicals!
The way those chemicals are packaged shouldn't matter,
especially in a dishwasher 
which violently churns up the water as it runs.
And lots of pods out there are nothing more 
than a small quantity of powder in a dissolvable membrane.
So if loose powders perform worse than pods,
that's probably because the manufacturers want them to.
Which brings me back to this.
When I was working with Good Store 
on the Technology Connections socks campaign
(which by the way, thank you 
so much to everyone who purchased them.
Numbers aren't final yet, but it's looking like we'll have raised close to $200,000 for the Maternal Center of Excellence,
which is awesome!
And by the way, it just had its ribbon cutting.
Truly, thank you all so much 
and I can't wait for the socks to start arriving at your door).
...
Okay, that was too long of a parenthetical, so let me restart.
When I was working with Good Store, 
an old idea of John Green's was resurrected.
Back in 2022, John contacted me and said,
"You know what would be funny? If you made your own dishwasher detergent and we sold it to raise money for charity."
I frikkin loved that idea, but we weren't sure how to pull it off so we decided to shove it for a while.
Fast forward a few years and Good Store now exists 
and they've been selling eco-friendly cleaning products
in partnership with Green Llama 
to raise money for the Coral Reef Alliance.
While they were offering dishwasher tablets,
lots of people were writing in to ask for a powder option.
Weird. I wonder why that might be.
Maybe they saw some YouTube videos.
So, since the demand was there,
I got connected with Matt Keasey.
And after explaining my whole deal 
and the importance of the pre-wash,
he was excited to work on his own loose powder formulation.
And this is the result of his work.
And folks, this is fantastic.
And best of all, you don't have to take my word for it.
See, the team at Green Llama wasn't satisfied with simply coming up with a great formulation and calling it done.
Matt arranged for independent, blinded ASTM testing
where this product was put through 
a series of standardized scientific tests
to measure its cleaning 
performance in several food stain categories.
And it was compared against both a big name powder
and the most premium detergent pod 
on offer by the same big name brand.
The tests revealed two very interesting things.
First, the powder that big name brand sells 
is in fact worse at cleaning than their pods.
So, you are at least getting a better product 
when you buy their more expensive option.
Which is good... I guess.
But second, we also confirmed my long-held suspicion that the performance difference between Big Powder and Big Pod
has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that 
one is a powder and one is a fancy pants pod.
Because you see, Matt's powder formulation meets or exceeds the cleaning performance of the best pods that brand sells
in nearly every category tested.
The only test where this lost to the pod was 
the tea stain removal test, but it came in second.
And the overall score for this formulation 
was slightly higher than the pod it was tested against.
So, this is good stuff.
Oh, and for the folks out there who have had problems 
with powders leaving some kind of residue,
well, part of the testing procedure 
evaluated spotting and filming.
And sure enough, Matt's formulation 
is just as good as that brand name pod.
No spotting was observed at all,
and when it comes to filming, 
this got a slightly better score than the brand name.
It's almost like powders actually 
can be excellent detergent products or something!
I have also tested this myself, of course -
Yeah, that's right.
I got early access to a dishwasher detergent formulation.
Way cooler than something boring 
like the latest phone or laptop.
Anyway, Matt's formulation passed my standard several-days-old-dried-out-cheese-and-bean-dip challenge with flying colors,
and it took care of that hazelnut spread container, 
too, along with everything else in the machine.
In fact, after using this a few times,
I am pretty confident this is the best 
dishwasher detergent product I have personally used.
Most of my dinnerware is glass, and while I've never had any washing issues using my cheapskate store brand powder,
I did notice the glass seemed to be a little bit 
clearer after using the Green Llama formulation.
And just a single run through the dishwasher with this stuff
cleared up a faint ring of white hazing that had 
built up on the sides of that same bean dip pan over time.
I truly did not expect that, and I wish I had taken a 
photo of that hazing before I made the dip.
This really does a fantastic job at cleaning.
And you know what's even better?
Because this is a loose powder,
if you want to try and use different amounts of detergent based on how dirty your dishes actually are -
YOU CAN!
The standard dose is just a single tablespoon,
which as independent testing has confirmed is just as good as the most premium pod products out there.
But you may very well not need that much 
all the time, or perhaps ever!
Maybe you've got soft water 
which makes detergents more effective.
Or perhaps you've got a particularly good dishwasher model 
that just doesn't need so much detergent no matter what.
Or even if you're not in either of those boats,
perhaps tonight's load of dishes just isn't that dirty and won't need a whole pod's worth of detergent.
That's why I like loose powders.
You're in control of how much detergent you use!
Not some executive at some 
company who thinks they know what's best for
your dishwasher and your water supply 
and what you're washing right now.
And if you've been persuaded 
by the power of the pre-wash, why, of course,
you can do that, too.
In fact, you could split the single tablespoon into three teaspoons: use one in the pre-wash and two for the main wash.
That might very well work better for you than putting 
the whole tablespoon in the dispenser,
especially when you're washing greasy, oily stuff.
So, obviously part of why I'm telling you about this new detergent product is because it's available for sale.
And as a Good Store product, all of the profit from its sales 
will be donated to the Coral Reef Alliance.
There are links in the description and the pinned comment which will take you to its product page,
and I hope you check it out.
I even made an instructional video for those who choose to buy it!
But the other part of why I'm telling you about this detergent is because its development has proven that powders can be great.
So good detergents absolutely don't have to be sold like that.
They don't need pretty colors.
They don't need fragrances -
honestly, what is even the point 
of a fragrance in automatic dishwasher detergent?
They don't need to be pre-dosed.
They don't need any weird gimmicks.
And they don't need wasteful packaging.
I can't stand that in order to buy value quantities of detergent pods, you get a giant plastic tub thrown in for some reason.
Get this, detergent could just come in a paper bag!
And even though this one is resealable, 
it's made from compostable materials.
Pretty neat.
And let's not forget those detergent pods are often held together by PVA, a kind of dissolvable plastic which uh...
perhaps we shouldn't be dumping down the drain and into our environment every time we run the dishwasher.
I get that those products are more convenient.
I really do, and some folks out there truly need them.
So, honestly, I'm glad they exist.
But for what it's worth, Green Llama's 
dishwasher tablets also prove
you don't actually need 
that PVA wrapper to make a pre-dosed product.
But personally, I will always want to control 
how much detergent I use and how I use it,
which is why I'm so happy
there's a new powder option out there.
Thanks so much to Matt for developing this formula 
and of course for sending it to be tested in a lab.
It's nice to know that the bad powders out there
are only bad because whoever makes them 
isn't putting their best foot forward.
And we can only wonder just why exactly that might be.
All right. And for my next trick,
it's time to show you why it's so important
that you open your kitchen faucet and run the hot water until 
it's actually coming out piping hot before you start your dishwasher.
Again, for those of you who live where household voltage 
is 230 volts, you almost certainly don't need to do this.
But for those of us with 120 volt power on tap, we do.
Why? Well, with very few exceptions, domestic dishwashers sold here are meant to be hooked up to a hot water supply.
Usually, it's connected to the 
same hot water line as your kitchen faucet.
And we do this because thanks to our lower voltage, 
our dishwashers don't have very powerful heating elements.
Side note, that's not technically because of our lower voltage.
Our dishwashers could have 1,500 watt heating elements
or even 2 kilowatt heating elements if they 
were wired to a dedicated 20 amp circuit.
But dishwashers sold here usually have heating elements 
in the neighborhood of 800 to 1,000 watts.
And there's a simple and pragmatic reason why.
See, there are plenty of homes 
that were not built with a dishwasher.
So, if someone wants to add one later, it's probably going to end up sharing its circuit with something else in the kitchen,
like the outlets above the countertop or perhaps the refrigerator.
And so rather than make specific models for retrofits,
manufacturers limit the current consumption 
of all their dishwashers to something like 10 amps.
This gives some overhead 
which reduces nuisance trips of circuit breakers,
but it means North American dishwashers 
just aren't very fast at heating the water inside of them.
But if they fill with water that's already hot, 
then the heating element gets a head start.
That's the entire reason they're hooked up to hot water.
However, they won't necessarily get hot water when you start the machine unless you've purged the pipes
between your water heater and the kitchen faucet of the cold water that's currently resting in them.
That's what I'm telling you to do when I say "run the kitchen faucet until the water comes out piping hot."
That will clear the cold water 
from the line before the dishwasher starts filling itself.
And just in case you think I'm making that up,
here is that exact advice 
in the owner's manual of this Frigidaire dishwasher.
How important this is to do 
depends on your dishwasher and your home.
But this is the only way 
to get consistent performance out of your machine.
Otherwise, it may start filling 
or completely fill with room temperature water,
which not only defeats the point 
of being hooked up to hot water in the first place,
but more importantly will 
dramatically hurt its cleaning performance.
And it hurts cleaning performance in two ways.
First, many food soils need the help of high temperatures to soften and detach from what they're stuck to.
That's why you use hot water when handwashing.
But dishwashers especially need hot water 
because of how modern detergent products work.
The phaseout of phosphates from automatic dishwasher detergent was a messy ordeal
and there was a brief period of time 
where dishwasher detergents really were pretty awful.
Some folks are still hung up about that.
But modern detergents use enzymes, usually protease and amylase, which chemically break down starches and proteins.
In a sense, those enzymes digest the food on your plates and stuff and allow it to dissolve into the water.
However, in order for those enzymes to be maximally effective, the washing water needs to be quite hot,
ideally 60° C or 140° F.
And here's where the trouble lies: 
if your dishwasher doesn't actually fill with hot water,
then because of its slow heating element, it may not be able to reach that temperature before it drains the wash water away
and moves on to rinsing.
Or even if it does make it, it may very well 
spend less time washing at the optimal temperatures
before its wash program calls for moving to the next step.
And with the help of my trusty temperature data loggers,
a plastic bag, some rubber bands, a zip tie, 
and a dishwasher with a hole in its side,
I can show you the difference 
between a dishwasher which fills with room temperature water
and a dishwasher that fills with hot water.
I hooked ol' Fridgy up to this utility sink using an adapter, 
basically turning it into a portable dishwasher.
Which by the way, did you know those exist?
I don't mean a countertop dishwasher.
I mean a full-size dishwasher.
You can buy a machine much like this 
but encased in a box on wheels
and which uses an attachment to hook it up to a kitchen faucet.
If you don't have a dishwasher but would like one, 
those are an option worth looking into.
My grandparents had one, and it worked great!
Just roll it over to the sink and hook up the combined fill and drain hose thing to the faucet using the adapter it comes with,
plug the machine into a power outlet,
 set the faucet to hot water
(and purge the line of course, which you can do with a little button on the adapter thing)
and then start the machine.
Those of you who insist on 
handwashing really seem quite funny to me
when put in contrast to what my grandma did 
every day specifically to avoid washing dishes.
Anyway, because I had it hooked up to a faucet, I could choose whether the machine would fill with hot or cold water.
And I devised a test using a food 
which really needs hot water to be dealt with effectively:
Peanut butter.
And a whole lot of it.
I melted almost half a jar's worth of peanut butter and swirled it 
around in a series of mason jars and glass mugs
to completely coat them in delicious goop.
And then I let it all cool 
back to room temperature so it resolidified.
I hope you'll pardon the food 
waste when you see how well this demo worked.
In addition to the peanut butter, I also melted some regular butter and swirled it around in the same glass mugs.
Some went on the top rack and others went on the bottom rack where they'd be visible to the camera peering in through the glass.
Also present were a couple of plates coated in honey.
Being fresh, I didn't really think that was going to be a problem for cold water, but I decided to try it anyway.
Throughout this testing, a temperature logging device was positioned directly above the center of the lower spray arm.
I would have liked it to be sitting in the water,
but the design of this machine's 
spray arm made that not so possible.
Now, for this test, I did not use any pre-wash detergent.
At least... the first two times I ran the test.
We'll get there.
However, the machine's 
detergent dispenser was filled with detergent -
in this case, a store brand product.
I didn't use Matt's formulation 
because at the time I didn't have enough left.
But to be honest, even if I did, 
I wouldn't want to waste it on this nonsense.
So, with everything in place, I set the faucet to cold 
and started the machine on its normal wash program.
Once full of water, it began its 15-minute pre-wash.
But because this machine doesn't 
turn on the heating element during the pre-wash,
that meant it spent 15 minutes "washing" with cold water.
Some of the peanut butter did manage to get knocked off by the mechanical action of the water.
And though it took a while,
the butter in the bottom of the mug on 
the bottom rack was eventually dislodged.
But not much else happened.
Once it had finished draining the pre-wash water,
I opened the machine to take a peek at the top rack, and everything up there looked completely untouched.
The honey, though, did all dissolve and got pumped away, so there probably wasn't a point to including that.
Oh well, live and learn.
Once I closed the door and the cycle resumed, 
the machine did its little purging and rinsing dance
then filled again with cold water, switched on its heating element, resumed washing, and opened the detergent dispenser.
The water inside is still just at room temperature,
so while we now have the help of detergent, 
we don't yet have the help of any heat.
And because the heating element in this machine 
is only putting 900 watts of heat output into the water,
it took quite a long time for the peanut butter 
to start softening and for the detergent to get to work.
Though it did eventually all clear up.
The water was absolutely filthy 
with all that peanut butter and actual butter in it,
but the machine was just barely 
able to get it all off before it started draining.
Now, I needed to do this test again 
so I let the machine finish the wash cycle.
It didn't do a very good job of rinsing, which I wasn't super surprised by given the ridiculous amount of peanut butter in there.
So, I had to do a rinse only cycle afterwards.
But once everything was clean, I reset the test.
I tried to make this as consistent with the last test as possible,
and I put everything exactly where it was in the first test.
I even put honey in there again just in case it was somehow doing something to affect how well things dissolved or not.
But this time I switched the faucet to hot water
and I disconnected the hose and purged the line of cold water before reconnecting it and starting the machine
which made sure the water 
which entered was actually piping hot.
If you're wondering why there's a whole bunch of other stuff in the dishwasher alongside what's actually dirty,
well this was to make sure the test is representative of the actual conditions a dishwasher typically sees.
The gallon-ish of hot water that it's about to take in 
doesn't have that much heat energy in it,
and all those plates (and the dishwasher itself) 
have quite a lot of thermal mass.
So, I wanted to know how much the water would be cooled down by all that stuff.
Or put another way, how much 
heating the incoming water actually does.
And, well, after it drained this water out, 
I measured its temperature at just under 81°.
That's about 14° above the ambient temperature.
That may not seem that significant, 
but now that everything inside is already at 81°
we've given the main wash at least 
a 10-minute head start when 
it comes to heating -
if not more, depending on how hot the next fill of water is.
That's going to depend on your home's particularities.
15 minutes have passed since it last filled with water, so 
the water resting in the pipes will have cooled down a fair bit.
Here, the lil' baby water heater, which is supplying the dishwasher with hot water is right next to the sink.
So, I'll note that it's going to fill again with pretty hot water,
and it's probably got a bit of an advantage here 
compared to most installations.
Regardless, let's take a side by side look at how this goes.
This is a time lapse which ended up causing some 
flashing light effects, so here's your warning for that.
I'll let you know when it's off screen by saying "persnickety."
During the pre-wash, we don't actually see much of a difference.
In fact, the cold fill side appears to be doing slightly better
since we are not seeing the peanut butter get dislodged from the bottom of the mason jars like we were before.
But we do see that the pad of butter was dislodged 
much more quickly from the mug on the hot fill side
thanks to the blasts of warm water helping 
it to soften and detach from the glass.
However, once we move on to the main wash 
and the detergent dispenser opens,
the difference is dramatic.
While nothing seems to be happening yet on the cold fill side,
the detergent and the water immediately gets to work melting and dissolving the peanut butter on the hot fill side.
My temperature logger reacts fairly slowly 
to sudden changes in temperature,
but based on the similarity in the curve shapes here,
I would estimate that the 
wash water was immediately at about 95°,
whereas on the cold fill side,
the water is only just now 
starting to move above room temperature.
In fact, by the time the data logger was reading 100° on the hot fill side, the cold fill side was only reading about 78°.  
That's why nothing 
seemed to be happening for such a long time.
The upshot here is that when the machine filled with hot water,
it had completely finished getting the peanut butter off the jars and stuff about 20 minutes earlier than when it filled with cold water.
Persnickety.
And because this machine always spends the same amount of time in this part of the washing cycle before it drains,
this means the actually effective washing time was extended by 20 minutes simply by filling with hot water rather than cold.
That could very well be the difference between 
perfectly clean dishes and disappointment.
But before I show you what adding 
a little pre-wash detergent did,
you may have noticed something about where the temperatures peaked.
This testing revealed something about this dishwasher 
which I honestly didn't expect
and assuming others out there are like it makes it 
even more important that you do that whole
"run the tap until the water comes out hot" 
thing I keep harping on about.
This machine is controlled by a microprocessor,
and when I made my first videos with it and discovered that there were two temperature sensing devices below the washtub,
I figured one of them would be a thermistor or some other temperature sensor that the control board is monitoring
to make sure it attains a target temperature.
But these two temperature graphs suggest the machine is simply running its heating element for a fixed period of time.
When it filled with cold water, it didn't even hit 120 Fahrenheit before it switched off the heating element.
It actually got hotter during the final rinse 
than it ever did in the main wash.
With a hot water fill, it peaked slightly above 130 Fahrenheit,
but you can see that the heating element 
switched off at precisely the same time.
I figured the cold fill wash would run the heating element longer, but since it apparently didn't...
well, you really, really need to purge the cold water from the line for this thing's normal wash cycle to do a good job.
But this machine has more than just one cycle.
In fact, it offers four different wash cycles with two 
optional modifiers: high temp wash and sanitize.
And I wanted to see how the heating element's behavior might change using those other cycles and options.
So, I decided to wire an indicator light in parallel with the heating element so I could record what it's doing.
And then I thought, 
why don't I add indicators for everything else it does?
So, I gave the machine some blinkenlights!
I wasn't expecting to install them in the control panel like this,
but when I opened it up to get 
access to the detergent dispenser's wiring,
I realized there was clearance 
below the vent and... well, I couldn't resist.
We can now see exactly what 
the machine is actually doing:
Filling with water, draining that water out, running its wash 
pump, dispensing detergent,
and of course, 
the thing I mostly did this for, heating the water.
And in a more than slightly annoying twist, 
while I was inside the control panel
I discovered a little sheet of paper clipped to the 
stainless steel on the inside of the door panel.
I took it out and...
whaddya know, a service data sheet!
It's got a wiring diagram, an exploded parts diagram 
on the back, and some troubleshooting stuff.
And it also has charts which 
explain what all the cycles do and when.
I wish I knew that was in there -
and honestly, all appliances 
should come with something like this. It's great!
Maybe don't hide it inside the door next time.
Anyway, with this, I confirmed there is in fact a 
thermistor which the control board is monitoring, but...
it only actually uses it to control the heating element 
if you select the sanitize or high temp wash options.
If you don't, it simply heats the water for a predetermined period of time depending on which cycle you chose.
That seemed kind of strange, but 
here's where things get weirder.
The high temp wash option doesn't simply make the wash a high temp 
wash.
That's what you'd think, right?
That's what it says.
But in fact, it wildly changes the normal wash sequence.
Select that modifier and you get not one,
not two,
not three,
but four pre-washes, 
the last of which is actually heated, too.
So, you get a half hour of pre-washing 
with four water changes before the main wash even starts.
And with the final pre-wash also heated, everything inside 
is already at about 110° when the dispenser opens.
This obviously uses much more water, but it 
makes the main wash extremely effective
and gives those enzymes lots of time to go to town.
Plus, at the end of the cycle, you also get two complete rinses rather than the one and a half you get otherwise.
When it does that purging dance, 
which it apparently claims is a pre-rinse,
it never sends any water to the top sprayers.
So, whatever residual dirty water is left from the main wash inside the two upper spray arms
and the tubing which feeds them 
is gonna end up in the final rinse.
Honestly, this machine's unmodified 
normal wash cycle... is not very good.
It washes okay, assuming you purged the line 
of cold water, but rinsing leaves a lot to be desired.
Oh, and fun fact, you know how much energy the 
energy saver cycle saves over the normal cycle?
Turns out none at all!
And it uses more water.
So that's neat.
The moral of this story is 
since the cycles are so wildly different,
if you haven't yet, you really need to try 
the other cycles and options on your machine.
If you've been having residue issues, other cycles may very well do extra rinses which will take care of that.
And if your machine is on the older side and enzyme-based detergents weren't common when it was made,
those heavier wash options might be the only way to assure the water actually reaches optimal enzymatic temperatures.
I'm going to talk more about this on my second channel
because I've uncovered a lot about 
this dishwasher which isn't even on these charts.
For instance, I was also curious whether the 
delay start option would change its heating behavior.
Spoiler:
nope.
And some of its cycles and options are not listed here.
I'll also show you the peanut 
butter test with the high temp wash option.
It made a dramatic difference.
But this video has already gotten 
quite a bit longer than I anticipated,
so I'm going to finish up with 
the third time I ran the peanut butter test.
This time, I included just a single teaspoon of 
Matt's marvelous detergent formula for the pre-wash water.
Okay, it was a bit of a heaping teaspoon, but this 
is well less than half the standard washing dose.  
And I simply placed it on the door and let it fall inside.
I started the machine on the unmodified normal cycle again with the hot water line purged.
And the first thing you'll notice is that the butter was dislodged much, much faster with some detergent in the water.
In fact, the sides of the mug cleared up almost immediately.
Now, the rest of what the pre-wash detergent did is a little more subtle,
but it's pretty evident in the time lapse.
Again, flashing lights ahead, 
and I'll say persnickety when they're gone.
As the pre-wash continues, we see the water start to get much cloudier with the addition of pre-wash detergent.
Even with just this tiny amount, the detergent is allowing the water to absorb the fats in both types of butter immediately.
And that's why we're seeing it start to get cloudy -
it's actually starting to dissolve those butters.
Yet, nothing else about this wash is any different.
In fact, the temperature graph is pretty much identical to the last demo.
Now, admittedly, it doesn't look 
like a dramatic difference in this footage.
But if we look at the water which was drained out of the machine at the end of the pre-wash,
persnickety, the addition of detergent 
clearly increased how much peanut butter was drained out.
The water is much cloudier and more uniform.
Without the detergent, a good deal of stuff came out,
but the water was a fair bit clearer, and what managed to make it out were more like chunks than anything else.
I opened the door once it was finished 
draining the pre-wash water to check out the top rack.
And here, too, we see a pretty significant difference.
Stuff on the top rack doesn't get sprayed 
for several minutes into the pre-wash,
so the water cools down quite a bit 
before stuff up here gets a good spraying.
Still, in a first, both mugs of butter had the big pad dislodged with only a small ring remaining on one of them.
And if we check on the bottom of the machine, we can see that although some of the butter remains inside,
it's all been broken down into chunks.
I am very annoyed with myself because I forgot to 
check the bottom of the machine for what the butter  
that fell out of the mugs looked like when I ran the test the second time with hot water but without pre-wash detergent.
So, my apologies there.
However, another flashing light warning,
if we go back to the time lapse, we can see that during the main wash,
the water was much dirtier 
in the fill with only a single dose of detergent.
While the pre-wash detergent certainly didn't get everything out,
I think it's clear from this footage that it made a significant difference to how much food soil was left
when the main wash detergent was released.
And that's the entire reason I like to use pre-wash detergent!
Taking the same amount of detergent and 
spreading its work between two fills of water
is often more effective 
than asking it to do everything all at once.
Persnickety.
I don't always use pre-wash detergent to be clear, but if I've got anything in the dishwasher which is oily or fatty or greasy,
I will be sure to add some additional detergent so the main wash fill doesn't have to deal with all of that on its own.
Remember how the butter was dislodged so much faster?
It took a little over 5 minutes for it to get knocked out of the mug without pre-wash detergent,
but it only took about 60 seconds 
when there was some soap in the water.
It's almost like detergents 
help fats to mix with water or something!
Now, I didn't do the best job being consistent 
with how much butter was in the bottom mug,
so here's a teaser of the high temp 
wash test that you'll find on my second channel.
I put way more butter in this mug, and still it only took 
70 seconds for the butter to start to release,
and just a few more spins of the sprayer 
were all it took for the rest to come out.
If this doesn't convince you, I don't know what could.
And now that someone has 
developed a powdered detergent product
which doesn't have to fit into an overly complicated product lineup which needs to justify wildly different price points somehow,
we know that there's absolutely no reason you 
should not be able to get the freedom of powder
without sacrificing washing performance.
Powders don't have to be relegated 
to a sad spot on the bottom shelf of the store.
They could in fact be a premium product.
So, thank you so much to everyone who worked on this project,
but especially Matt Keasey.
If one person can develop a detergent formulation
which works just as well as what the big guys have convinced so many people is the only way to get a good wash...
Well, I'll just say perhaps those 
stubborn, crotchety Midwesterners out there
might have a point about marketing gimmicks.
♫ vindicatedly smooth jazz ♫
I was right!
Why might that be?
Weird vocal flub.
Oh no. Is that a leaf blower?
On Friday?
We will patiently wait for the leaf blowering to stop.
I strongly prefer loose powders for dishwashers... 
[thud]
Are they leaf blowing on the roof?
They might be.
And that's the entire reason I like to use main -
gah!
I'm going to finish up with the 
third time I ran the peanut butter test.
FFAAH[bleep]
...time I ran the peanut butter test.
Godd-
I don't want to hear another word 
about how much better those pods are.
Or I guess, I don't want to hear another word about how pods are some kind of "innovation" which favors the consumer.
Because while they might be innovative, 
I don't think it's us who's really benefiting.
My hat was never tinfoil!