I sell dish wash chemical systems to restaurants, hospitals, schools etc. We do not add salt to the dish machine water. It would interfere with the sensors that we use to monitor the detergent levels in the wash water. I have never heard of salt having an effect on the glassware.
A bosun I worked for always shaved with cold water. He insisted the blades stayed sharp longer than if he were to use hot water.
He did not sleep under a pyramid or wear a tinfoil hat. He did walk down the gangplank backwards for some rerason.
Sounds as if you have (mineralized) 'hard water'.
We use a rinse agent in ours, as well. It makes the water more wet (honest!) and it slides on off, taking the minerals with it.
Bill
Mike Marlow wrote: A special rack to enclose the blade so the
What company is that? I suspect that they are going to do very well and I'd like to buy some stock if there's any to be had! There's a fine line between those with no sense and those with no sense AND no money. The former buy a lot of stuff that the latter would turn their nose up at. ;-)
Bill
Perhaps, but I doubt your investment will be very richly returned. I'd find it hard to believe that would be much of a real selling feature. Now - if someone sold a dishwasher that had a built in knife sharpener that automatically refreshed the edge on the knives when the wife just throws them in with all the other silverware...
I'd bet 80% of the households have no idea what a sharp knife is like.
- if > someone sold a dishwasher that had a built in knife sharpener that > automatically refreshed the edge on the knives when the wife just throws > them in with all the other silverware... >
Keep your knives in a wooden rack, then a few strokes with a steel prior to each use, knives stay sharp.
Lew
Wife-dishwasher? No chance I look after loading ours, and the eldest unloads it, loading needs forethought otherwise nothing fits in, SWTSMBO is just to impatient to do it properly without breakages, though it does mean I can wash things I want without complaint!
I would think many of them by now. We built our house in 1997 and the machine we installed had such a rack (Kitchenaid). I noticed our Son's new dishwasher had a similar rack when he built his home this fall.
From the posts above, I suspect a lot of folks have a grander idea of what this rack is than its reality. At one end of our door-mounted silverware rack is a filp-up rack with slots to accommodate 6 or 8 knife blades. If you use it, it keeps blades pointed down, not up. And despite some opinions above, it is very easy to put a knife in a washer rack blade up, when you are accustomed to putting spoons, forks and dinner knives in that way.
RonB
I'm going with Truth - at least for good knives.
Carbon steel will take a better edge than SS or HSS. Won't hold it as long, but it can be made sharper.
Sharp carbon steel edges don't dull faster if you take care of them. When they "dull" it's because the edge has been rolled - think Cabinet Scraper. If you use a "steel" on them you straighten the edge back up. Think of the "steel" as a cabinet scraper burnisher. If you don't "steel" the edge when needed, the rolled edge breaks off. THEN you've actually dulled the edge and you have to sharpen it - ie - selectively remove metal.
Now if you've ever "burned" an edge while sharpening, you know that by the time you can see "color" it's too late. You actually lost the temper on the edge BEFORE the temper killing heat's color indicator was visible. Remember, at the actual cutting edge there's not much metal so it heats up fast.
Heat is the enemy of a really sharp edge on carbon steel.
Most new dishwashers have a water heater in the inlet path that kicks it up to 160 degrees or more AND some have heating elements to dry the dishes (and the chemicals that are in "hard" water). Doesn't take a lot of heat to affect the temper of a fine edge on a carbon steel knife, or chisel or plane iron.
Now add a fairly concentrated base (soap as opposed to an acid) and you're begging for a chemical reaction with the carbon steel - and one that ain't good for a fine cutting edge.
Just for fun, put your next razor blade in the dishwasher, run through it's cycles and THEN shave with it.
Oh, BTW, cutting edges hitting anything metal isn't good for them either - even just a little contact is BAD.
charlie b
occassional user and caretaker of some Chicago Cutlery carbon steel knives - with wood handles, not polished, not coated with poly or plastic or varnish, just oiled when they look like they need \ it.
RonB wrote:And despite some opinions
All the directions I've ever seen for loading a dishwasher say to put the working end of tableware down. That said, I put our sharp knives in the top rack laying flat.
Bill
Models from Kitchen Aid and Maytag have instructions to alternate the tableware (up/down) in the basket thingie. 'Course, that's from NET 2 years ago, somaybe nowdays things are different.
Renata
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