The Year of Better: The Dishwasher Tab Edition

I think I may have promised a dishwasher tab recipe sometime ago. The fact that I'm just now getting around to it has nothing to do with my propensity to procrastinate (say that 10 times fast after 4 bourbon shots and a mojito). The fit nailed the shan this summer and without going into it here (that's a whole separate post about prayer and God and why an independent 4-year old boy will probably age me faster than 2 deployments in the Middle East), suffice it to say, I have continued to make tabs and wash dishes nightly, but I owe you a post.

I have a love/hate and, depending on the rental home, a hate/hate relationship with automatic dishwashers. When we finally retire and settle down, I'm taking my stockpile of cash and buying the best dishwasher that money can afford. We may live in a tiny home on the side of a cliff, but I'm going to own a kick ass dishwasher because...first world problems. So, just as Neal does battle with the squirrels pretty much everywhere we live, I coddle and cuss the dishwasher. Making dishwasher tabs is my attempt at getting clean dishes every time while making sure the dishwasher doesn't just roll over and die before we are ready to move again.

So, I should say that the dishwasher did roll over and play dead while my sister and nieces were in town (because timing can either be beautiful or a bitch). While I waited for the Sears repairman to appear at our door and fretted about whether I had caused everything to short out with my tree hugger dish cleaner, I did some research. (Yes, it would have been smarter to do the research before I started using the tabs but...go big or go home.) As it turns out, technicians (of the Google variety) suggest cleaning your dishwasher with baking soda and vinegar a few times each year to unclog build-up (which also suggests to me that perhaps I should be drinking the same concoction. If it's on my dishes, it's in my body). Both Sears technicians (because why fix the problem on the first visit when you can take 2, preferably 3 weeks apart with 2 different techs) concurred. So, in the end, it was a switch that had gone bad and not due to any chemical-free concoction I had whipped up. WHEW.

I am going to do something really annoying to you but really considerate to someone else. I'm going to send you to this website for the dishwasher tab recipe. One of the unspoken rules of blogging etiquette is if someone else has worked tirelessly to perfect the recipe, you really don't copy and paste it into your own blog. Use the recipe, post about the recipe but drive traffic to that person's blog, too. I've seen some variations on this recipe. One of my favorite chemical-free bloggers uses essentially the same ingredients but with citric acid and without the kosher salt. I simply went with this one because I have kosher salt laying around but not citric acid and have been happy so far.

So, a few tips now that you've checked out the recipe.

1. It has to be kosher or Epsom salt. I personally use Epsom because my first batch (where I assumed sea salt would work just fine) was so catastrophic that I now use the biggest grains of salt, short of road salt. If you ignore this little piece of advice, you will have a bowl of rock hard hot mess before the ingredients are even properly mixed. I promise.

2. Super Washing Soda can be found just about everywhere. I pick it up at a fairly small Weis. If they have it, you can rest assured that Kroger probably stocks it, too. This will also come in handy should you want to try your hand at clothing detergent, too. Also, if you run out of super washing soda while you are making a batch of tabs and think "eh..that's basically 1 cup", just know that your tabs will probably stay mushy until you've used them all up. It's entirely possible that I'm speaking from recent experience. But they will clean just the same.

3. You can add fresh squeezed lemon juice or the bottled variety from the baking section. One time I tried adding Young Living lemon essential oil and one time I threw in some Young Living Thieves cleaner. I couldn't tell a huge difference between any of it but if my experiments had involved a petri dish, I might have more to say.

4. I mix everything in a big bowl and then spoon it out into ice cube trays - which then go into the refrigerator if it's particularly hot outside (causing it to be fairly warm inside). I tried using candy molds once (because the end product would fit inside the dishwasher compartment) but it wasn't enough cleaner. Besides, the best way to use these is to just toss them in the bottom of the washer, shut the door, hit start and congratulate yourself on saving the planet by eating some fair trade chocolate.

5. These tabs can be dry and ready to use in an hour or up to 8 hours if it's hot in your house. But sticking them in the fridge will help them harden. 

6. Here's the most important part. I saved it for the end because persistence and long attention spans should be rewarded. I basically pre-wash all of our dishes because our dishwasher is basic. I mean like a stay-at-home mom in her black yoga pants and a chai latte on her way to Target. Basic. So, I can't really say how much of the cleanliness is due to pre-wash (oh who am I kidding...pre-scrub) and how much is due to the tabs and their ingredients. But we have no spots and very little residue (mostly on Blue's IKEA cups). And when there is residue, I take comfort in knowing that it's mostly baking soda and lemon juice instead of something that ends in -hyde or -phate and may turn us green from the inside, out.

So, without further ado, here are the pretty pictures for all of you visual learners:

I just made a thousand word blog post about something that takes roughly 6 minutes to make. Seriously, just keep these ingredients on hand because someday you are going to run out of dishwasher detergent and it's going to take longer for your toddler to put his shoes on to go to the grocery than it will to whip this is up and start using it.

Next up: our clothing detergent and how I no longer get random holes in my clothes.