Step 1.
Preparation.
You will need:
- a sponge- not a floor sponge, or a counter sponge, this should be specifically for dishes.
- a sink
- a drying rack
- Washing up liquid.
- Hot water
- Dirty dishes
Step 2.
Pre-washing.
When you finish eating rinse milk out of glasses (it turns sour and sticks to the bottom) and sauce off of plates, mash out of pots and sauce out of sauce pans.
Rinsing helps make the washing process quicker and easier later as well as keeping the water cleaner.
Washing Dishes Rocket Science: You need clean water to make dirty things clean, therefore the cleaner the water the easier to make the dirty things clean.
Some items need to be soaked. This is also part of the pre-washing stage.
Step 3.
Set-up.
Fill basin or sink with hot water. Prepare dishes so categories are easy to get at.
Step 4.
Cutlery and glasses.
These are the things that go directly into your mouth or touch your mouth:
- Spoons.
- Forks
- Glasses
- Chopsticks
- Cups
- Sometimes knives.
Washing Dishes Rocket Science: The things that directly touch your mouth need to be the cleanest so doing them first means the cleanest and hottest water gets them the cleanest you can.
Remember: you need to clean the outsides of cups and glasses too because people touch them, there are germs there that will stay there if you don't clean it. Plus, leaving a glass on top of a plate with gravy on it means the underside of the glass now has gravy on it.
These two items can be interchangeable, sometimes you will have very dirty spoons but glasses that only had water, clean the glasses first. Most of the time it will be the cutlery that is least dirty.
Step 5.
Mid-range dirty things.
This is stuff like plates, bowls, serving spoons, lightly dirty pots (maybe that had carrots in them).
They cause the least amount of dirt to the water.
Again, there is interchangeable things here. Sometimes plates can be dirtier than some pots, or especially pot lids, do the pot first in that case.
Again make sure you wash the outsides of pots and bowls and the underside of plates.
Step 6.
The dirties.
These are the dirtier pots, pans, oven dishes, baking trays, frying pans, woks etc.
These are usually the dirtiest dishes from the breakfast/lunch/dinner. It makes sense to do them last.
Washing Dishes Rocket Science: If you put the dirtiest things in the water first it will make the water dirty. Then that dirt will float around in there until you put in a glass. The dirty water will likely make the glass more dirty than if you had just rinsed it and put it aside. This is why the method is set this way. Dirty things make clean things dirty as dirtiness is simply an absence of clean.
The end result of doing things backwards is dirty dishes with food germs on them, these are then being passed off as clean dishes, which is unhygienic, of course.
Step 7.
Drying.
It is most hygienic to allow dishes to drip dry on a drying rack.
Drying racks are specially designed to help dishes dry.
They contain a place for cutlery and utensils to stand upright as this has been determined to be better than leaving these items under bigger, wetter dishes.
They provide space for bowls and plates, showing that you need to allow them to dry facing vertically.
Washing Dishes Rocket Science: If you stack wet bowls or plates the water that is on top of each one will just stay on top of it. Gravity teaches us that if you place things in a way that allows gravity to pull whatever is on top of them downwards that it will do so. This is why plates and bowls are stored sideways and not stacked when you are leaving them to dry.
These drying racks sometimes have a space for glasses and mugs, other times they do not. If they do place the glass/mug upside-down to allow gravity pull the water down from the glass/mug.
If they do not include such an area leaving the glasses on the draining board (usually found next to the sink) works the same way.
Washing Dishes Rocket Science: Like plates and bowls above the glasses dry on the same principle. Leaving them facing upright will mean that the water will go to the bottom of the glass and not dry. Similarly, leaving them on a flat surface, such as a counter top, will cause the water to gather at the top of the glass, leaving it wet at the rim.
Finally, pots and pans. Again, sometimes a drying rack will have a space for these. If not it is ok to put them on top of glasses or plates, providing they are not stopped from dripping in doing so. Always put them upside-down (see glasses and mugs above).
For example, if you placed a pot the right way up the water will gather at the bottom, and not dry, if you place the pot on a plate that is lying down, not on its side, then the water will gather at the plate, keeping the plate and the pot wet.
Step 8.
Adding more dishes later.
Washing dishes is the job that is never done. If you find you have more dishes, and there are still some on the drip dryer, that are dry, then put those away before washing anything else.
Washing Dishes Rocket Science: Putting wet things on top of dry things makes the dry things wet, not the wet things dry for dryness is an absence of water.
And that's pretty much it. Happy dish washing dish washers.
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