How I finally got spotless dishes out of my Bosch 800 - what actually worked

We've had our dishwasher for about a year now and I learned the powder lesson the hard way too. Our city water tests around 15 grains hard, and the pods left a chalky ring on every coffee cup no matter what I tried. A neighbor who used to sell appliances told me to fill both the main and pre-wash cups with powder, which is something I never did before. That plus a rinse aid got the glasses clear again.

The hot tap trick works, though I'll admit I felt ridiculous doing it at first. Our dishwasher sits at the far end of the kitchen run from the water heater, so that first fill was basially cold every time. I hold a meat thermometer under the tap and wait until it reads around 115 before starting the cycle.

One thing I'd add is to check the filter. I went months without pulling that bottom basket out and rinsing it, and once I finally did there was a shocking amount of gunk in there. Now I do it every couple weeks and the machine just runs better. Also the spray arm on the lower rack can get plugged with seed fragments and stuff if you cook a lot of rice or quinoa, so I pop mine off and flush it now and then. Takes two minutes.

On the hot water thing, I just use the delay start instead. Set it a couple hours out and the pipe water doesn't matter since you're not standing there waiting anyway. Works good for running it overnight too. Also gonna second the filter habit, mine was nastier than I expected the first time I pulled it. One more tip from me: check that the upper spray arm spins free after you load tall stuff. A mixing spoon or a long spatula jammed wrong can stop it dead and you get that half-clean rack nobody can figure out.

One thing I figured out by accident is the drain. Mine empties into the garbage disposal, and I never thought about it until I noticed gunky water backing into the tub mid-cycle. Turns out I was starting loads right after running the disposal with a sink full of coffee grounds. Now I flush the disposal good before every wash and that problem's gone. Also, once a month or so I wipe the lip of the door and the bottom edge where gunk collects. That area never gets touched by the spray and it was starting to smell musty until I made a habit of it.

Yeah the no pre-rinsing thing took me way too long to accept too. I kept scraping plates nearly clean out of habit and the sensor cycles were finishing fast like there was nothing to do. Now I just scrape the big chunks into the trash and load them dirty, and I can acutally hear the machine running longer on the normal cycle. Egg yolk and oatmeal bowls that used to need a second wash come out fine.