Soap Water

Soap Water is kept next to the sink and is used for actually cleaning the dishes (as well as everything else) because the dishwasher is more of a "good idea". Most dishes still need a basic cleaning before the dishwasher will actually finish cleaning it. Part of this reason is because our dishwasher is a "low temp" dishwasher and doesn't heat its own water. So hot water is coming from the water heater. Most of the time this never tops 120 degrees where other dishwashers have internal water heaters and will scald/clean dirty dishes with 190 degree water!

What you will need is the Dawn dish detergent in a pump (buy commercially at Sam's Club). Please don't buy the other cheap liquid detergents, that's exactly what they are! Cheap in price and cheap on quality. Also we need another disinfecting bucket (just like when we make Bleach Water) and we will fill it about 1/3 of the way with water. Again, we do not need hot water in this bucket. The active ingredient we are using here is the soap and hard work. You will use this Soap Water all day or until it gets nasty and you need to change it.

You will add one full pump of the liquid detergent to the water. DO NOT add the liquid detergent first then try to fill the bucket with water because it will just make a lot of soap suds we do not need and it will be hard to tell how much water is actually in the bucket.

Alright on to the scrubbing equipment. We usually only keep green scrubby pads and steel wool on hand for cleaning. We hardly EVER use the steel wool and when we do its NOT ON plastic dishes like cambro containers and such.

Here we have the setup most of us like. There is nothing different about the green scrubbing pads in the picture except one has been used more than the other. This creates two different style pads to clean with. The more used one (on the far left) is less abrasive and great for generally cleaning everything. The one on the right is newer and more abrasive. Great for stuff stuck on pots and pans. The steel wool / scour pad is mostly for looks and emergency situations like hard to get off items that have already spent time soaking. Not for everyday use.

There is a technique for cleaning and scrubbing dishes and we talk about that HERE. (click the link)

Both the Soap Water and Bleach Water should be part of your start up routine for each day. There is no Health Department point violations for having or not having a Soap Water bucket. That is a creation of experience in the kitchen.

My simple process for cleaning almost EVERYTHING is scrub with Soap Water scrubby and wipe down with Bleach Water towel. (except for dishes, they get run through the dishwasher so they get sanitized that way)

(You can keep the Bleach Water bucket on another counter or sink it does not have to stay close to dishwasher, move the buckets around as you need.)