How To Clean A Stainless Steel Dishwasher

I have a dishwasher with a stainless steel interior that started looking like this:

I didn't think much of it because we have very hard water where I live and eventually everything gets hard water buildup and starts looking like this. But then the same white crusty buildup started showing up on the dishes.  After talking with some friends, I discovered I'm using the wrong dishwasher detergent.  It turns out, you can't use the cheap stuff and expect good results.  DUH!  Well, I feel dumb now.

So I'm not using the cheapest powder on the supermarket shelf anymore and I'm now using Cascade with Dawn action packs instead.  That's what was recommended to me, and (surprise!) it really does a good job of cleaning the dishes and doesn't leave a yucky white residue on everything!

Now I just had to find a way to get rid of the crud in the dishwasher and on the dishes.  I have several pins on my For The Home Pinterest board on how to clean a dishwasher.  Several of them said to set a cup of vinegar in the top rack and run the dishwasher through a cycle with just the vinegar and no dishes.  I did that, but it didn't really do anything to the caked on crud on the dishwasher door.

Next, I tried using baking soda and scrubbing with a sponge.  I scrubbed carefully and not too hard because I didn't want to scratch the metal.  That seemed to help a little bit, but still didn't remove everything.

Next I tried making my own scrubbing cleanser according to this pin with:

1/2 cup baking soda

1 Tablespoon Dawn dish detergent

1 Tablespoon white vinegar

This cleanser is a lot like Soft Scrub and it's great alternative to use in the dishwasher since everything I read said NOT to use bleach or any type of cleaner with bleach on stainless steel.  I thought this cleanser sounded promising because the baking soda by itself seemed to be scrubbing off the gunk and the Dawn was already in the action packs.  Dawn also did such a great job cleaning the glass doors in the shower I thought I'd give it a try.  I also used this homemade cleanser on the plates and it did a good job of getting rid of that white residue.

I know the title of this post is cleaning the dishwasher the easy way, but I'll be honest, I did have to use some elbow grease and really scrub.  Stuff didn't just wipe off like in the posts about how to clean the shower or how to clean the stove.  I had to scrub the dishwasher three times before I was happy with it.  Remember what it looked like before?

After a few good scrubs, here's what it looks like now!

In a nutshell, here's what worked for me.  Keep in mind that all dishwashers and water conditions are different and you might get different results.

1.  Don't use cheap detergent!

2.  Mix up your own scrubbing cleanser with baking soda, Dawn, and white vinegar.

3.  Gently scrub the inside of the dishwasher.  Scrub carefully so as not to leave scratch marks on the metal.  If you're really worried about it, you can do a test in a small spot before doing the whole door.
4.  After scrubbing, I wiped down the inside of the dishwasher before starting a cycle.  I didn't want the Dawn dish soap to suds up during the cycle.  I ran the dishwasher with a full load of dirty dishes after each time I scrubbed, hoping that the hot water would remove anything that had loosened up after my scrubbing.
5.  Repeat again if needed.  I did this three times before I decided it was clean enough.

 

 

Find more great cleaning tips here!