Best Temperature of water for Rinsing Dishes?

In summary, the best temperature for rinsing dishes is hot water as it helps dissolve the soap and removes dirt and fat more effectively through mechanical action. However, cold water can also be effective in removing surface layer of soap and dirt due to its greater sheering action. The presence of suds does not necessarily indicate the presence of soap, but hot water can help kill bacteria on dishes.
  • #1
Ackbach
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What is the best temperature water for rinsing dishes?

I've googled this question, and gotten many answers, very few of which have any rational basis for them whatsoever. For example, some people say that it's better to use hot water, because the soap dissolves better in hot water. However, it's not at all clear to me that dissolving is the underlying mechanism for getting rid of the soap, and none of the answers I've seen (including here on PF) speak to that.

Before I go on, let me say that quickness of drying is not on my radar screen here. I totally recognize that hot water, having more highly excited molecules, will evaporate quicker than cool water, given the same environment.

I do know this: if I have just emptied a bowl of soapy water into my sink, and I'm trying to rinse the soap down the drain, cool water seems to work much faster than hot. Indeed, hot water seems to make a lot more suds than cool water.

So, first: what is the underlying mechanism by which water removes soap? Is is sheer mechanical action, where the water simply displaces the soap out of the way? Or is it chemical (dissolving)?

Second: what temperature water would make this underlying mechanism work faster?

Third: Suppose the answer to my Second Part is cool water. What guarantee would I have that there isn't a soap residue left on my dishes?

My second main question is this: is the efficacy of soap (that is, its ability to remove dirt) at all related to the amount of suds present?

I hope that I have put this thread in the right place. My apologies if not. I am not a chemist, so please aim your explanations accordingly.

Thank you!
 
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  • #2
First: mechanical action is the primary factor, diffusion has too long of a time scale to be relevant.
Second: cold water is better for removing a surface layer of soap/dirt on the dish because cold water is more viscous so it will have a greater sheering action. On the other hand, hot water has lower surface tension and more easily spreads over the surface of the dish whereas cold water is likely to bead up and not interact with the soap on the surface.
Third: use a chelating agent with your soap: citric acid, like in shower cleaners. I haven't personally tried this to test its efficacy, but it could be viable. It's easy anc cheap to buy powdered citric acid in bulk from ebay.

It's not a straightforward answer of hot vs. cold as you said, since dirt is much more soluble in hot water. As someone who does research on soap films, it's my opinion that scrubbing with baking soda is more effective than using soap ;]

In case you're not aware, most dish soaps include enzymes that are good at removing things like egg from dishes, which can be helpful in many situations. Also dish soaps are typically about 5% ethanol for sanitizing (some use triclosan). Unless your dishes are absolutely filthy and greasy, half of the cleaning action can be accomplished by simply wiping them with your hand and some water. The widely held belief that soap's surfactants do the major part of the cleaning seems questionable. Mechanical action is the major factor, so suds, which are not very viscous, have little effect on the cleaning process and are just a side product of using surfactants. Overall, it's my feeling that hot water is still better, but if you plan to rinse dishes with soap and then water without any other mechanical action, you'll probably have soap scum regardless of water temperature.
 
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  • #3
Wonderful! Thanks for all the info.

I am confused on one point, though. For most of your post, you seem to be saying that cold water is more effective in lots of ways. But then, at the end, you say that it's your feeling that hot water is still better. How did you arrive at that decision? How are you weighting the factors?

Again, many thanks.
 
  • #4
Hot water just feels soothing to the hands, which I like!
 
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  • #5
Ha! So one more question: you say suds are not really any indicator of cleaning action. But they would be a good indicator of the presence of soap, right?

I live in Houston, TX, USA, and it's summer here. So cool water is much more soothing to me right now. And if you tell me that cool water rinses dishes just as well if not better than hot water, I'm all for cool water. Now if I can just convince my wife of this...
 
  • #6
As far as solubility and chemical reactions go, most proceed noticably faster in hot water ... :wink:
 
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  • #7
NascentOxygen said:
As far as solubility and chemical reactions go, most proceed noticably faster in hot water ... :wink:

Yes, that is a very common answer on the Internet. However, it does not tell me a lot of more fundamental things such as do I want the chemical reaction to occur? If you read the above posts, you will see that colliflour believes that sheer mechanical action is mostly responsible for removing soap. I know for a fact that if I'm rinsing my sink out, cold water works considerably faster than warm, at least for removing suds. Hence my latest post: are suds a good indicator of the presence of soap? We can all think for half a second to realize that lack of suds is not a good indicator of the lack of soap.

Now, if you want to argue that the primary mechanism responsible for removing soap during rinsing is chemical and not mechanical, I'd be interested to hear your argument.
 
  • #8
I know it's very difficult to get old food stuff off with cold water, while with hot water it almost slides off on its own.
Furthermore, soap is designed to interact with dirt and fat, which works better at higher temperatures.
I think you won't be able to get fat off dishes with cold water.
Finally, high temperature will kill most bacteria.

When I start thinking about bacteria and food stuff that are too small to see, I think I prefer hot water.
Afterward one might use cold water to get rid of the suds.
 
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  • #9
In general, the presence of suds is a good indicator of the presence of soap. Technically it is an indicator of a chemical which modifies the surface tension, many chemicals fall into this category (some sugars, etc) but mainly this category is surfactants from soap. Other components have the opposite effect of reducing suds even when there is a surfactant (soap) present. An example of this is alcohol. Lack of suds means that there is either not enough agitation/scrubbing to produce bubbles, or something is acting to rapidly burst the bubbles, such as alcohol.

My argument for mechanical action over dissolving is that you're scrubbing. One surface touches another and what is stuck to the surface is mechanically moved off it and left floating in the surrounding water or (disgustingly) stuck to the sponge. Dissolving is more important in rinsing, but since the water is generally turbulent, not a smooth cohesive flow, you're dealing with a lot of mechanical action by the water. If a contaminant is stuck to the surface of a dish when you start rinsing, either the water's bulk velocity will be great enough to grab it and take it off the dish, or it will slowly dissolve into the stream of water. In this situation, the water grabbing the contaminant from the surface will be more effective with cold water, but the dissolving part will be better with hot water. Now speaking from experience as a chemical engineer i can say that in the rinsing situation the time scale for diffusion is long versus turbulent time scales. If you're waiting for diffusion (dissolving) to wash something off the surface of a dish, you'll probably be waiting for a matter of minutes holding that dish under the stream of water. Of course truth be told with an actual dirty dish scenario there are a huge variety of possible types and arrangements of contaminants on a dish surface and many types of surfaces so there is some guessing involved. If you're dealing with a dish that has a significant solid stuck on layer that you think will take a long time to get off, hot water could be more useful since you'll need the help of diffusion, and since you can rely on thermal expansion to separate the two dissimilar layers. Overall i believe dissolving has a smaller effect than mechanical action, so the benefits of cold water through decreased viscosity especially could in theory win over hot water's decrease in diffusion time.
 
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  • #10
I like Serena said:
I know it's very difficult to get old food stuff off with cold water, while with hot water it almost slides off on its own.
Furthermore, soap is designed to interact with dirt and fat, which works better at higher temperatures.
I think you won't be able to get fat off dishes with cold water.
Finally, high temperature will kill most bacteria.

When I start thinking about bacteria and food stuff that are too small to see, I think I prefer hot water.
Afterward one might use cold water to get rid of the suds.

Right; hot water for the initial washing. That much is clear. I've always found hotter water more effective for washing. However, the subject of this thread is rinsing soap off of clean dishes, which is not necessarily the same thing.
 
  • #11
colliflour said:
In general, the presence of suds is a good indicator of the presence of soap. Technically it is an indicator of a chemical which modifies the surface tension, many chemicals fall into this category (some sugars, etc) but mainly this category is surfactants from soap. Other components have the opposite effect of reducing suds even when there is a surfactant (soap) present. An example of this is alcohol. Lack of suds means that there is either not enough agitation/scrubbing to produce bubbles, or something is acting to rapidly burst the bubbles, such as alcohol.

My argument for mechanical action over dissolving is that you're scrubbing. One surface touches another and what is stuck to the surface is mechanically moved off it and left floating in the surrounding water or (disgustingly) stuck to the sponge. Dissolving is more important in rinsing, but since the water is generally turbulent, not a smooth cohesive flow, you're dealing with a lot of mechanical action by the water. If a contaminant is stuck to the surface of a dish when you start rinsing, either the water's bulk velocity will be great enough to grab it and take it off the dish, or it will slowly dissolve into the stream of water. In this situation, the water grabbing the contaminant from the surface will be more effective with cold water, but the dissolving part will be better with hot water. Now speaking from experience as a chemical engineer i can say that in the rinsing situation the time scale for diffusion is long versus turbulent time scales. If you're waiting for diffusion (dissolving) to wash something off the surface of a dish, you'll probably be waiting for a matter of minutes holding that dish under the stream of water. Of course truth be told with an actual dirty dish scenario there are a huge variety of possible types and arrangements of contaminants on a dish surface and many types of surfaces so there is some guessing involved. If you're dealing with a dish that has a significant solid stuck on layer that you think will take a long time to get off, hot water could be more useful since you'll need the help of diffusion, and since you can rely on thermal expansion to separate the two dissimilar layers. Overall i believe dissolving has a smaller effect than mechanical action, so the benefits of cold water through decreased viscosity especially could in theory win over hot water's decrease in diffusion time.

Well, I think you've convinced me that cold water is better for rinsing soap off of clean dishes, and you've shown me the underlying mechanism. So, thanks very much for all your efforts!

Naturally, as I just replied to I like Serena, hot water is better for washing, and I intend to continue doing that, as I always have. But being able to use cold water for rinsing will be a boon in the heat of Houston.
 
  • #12
This is simply testimonial evidence as I'm not a scientist, but as scientists, I hope you are open to listening to experience.

I am a 70-year-old woman who has washed a lot of dishes in my life with beautiful, calloused hands to prove it. One Thanksgiving my brother was helping with the dishes and said he rinses in cold water because it gets rid of the soap faster. However, the dishes he was placing in the draining rack had beaded water on them, as if they still had grease/oil on the surface. I said, "This is not working, I don't think these dishes are clean." He said, "Of course they are, I just washed them in hot soapy water." Well, maybe.

I experimented with this later. I use a lot of soap, more than most people, and very hot rinse water. My test for clean dishes is that they squeak in my hands when I place them in the drainer. After rinsing with cold water, they do not squeak, after hot water they do. I think they don't squeak with cold water because cold water just removes the soap, but hot water rinse removes the grease/oil with the soap. I think that if you don't wash dishes in a constant stream of new, hot, soapy water (highly impractical), there is some oil in your washing water that remains on the dishes as you rinse. Hot rinse water removes that residual oil/grease.

Try it, you'll see what I mean.

Thanks everyone!
 
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  • #13
Hot water dissolves most stuff faster, yet the main reason for using hot water in washing is the removal of fats.
Fats can attach to soap at any temperature, yet there is a difference of a few orders of magnitude in reaction speed between the liquid state and solid state. As many fats are solid at low temperatures, or a portion of their contents, they cannot be washed easily.
Chocolate (m.p. ~38) for example is way harder to wash away then sunflower oil (m.p. -17), although the soap sticks to them in a similar manner.
Everything else is just mechanical action, and while water seems to have this advantage at cold temperatures, foodstuff is also stiffer at cold temperatures, so not very relevant imo.
 
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  • #14
I'm not a scientist, but having been a dishwasher in the food service industry for many years, I can tell you that you should always rinse in water HOTTER than you wash with. Soap gets trapped in porous surfaces. You don't get it out with cold water, you close the pore. It opens again, releasing that soap, when you cook with the dish, or place hot food on it. Rinsing with hotter water opens the pore more, releasing the soap, and thoroughly rinsing the dish. Plastics and rubber hold soap more readily, while glazed ceramics, glasses and metals more easily rinse clean. I was trained to rinse hot so we don't risk putting soap in our customers.
 
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  • #15
I have always rinsed the dishes with hot or warm water until this winter when occasionally didn't turn the water heater on and used very cold water for both washing and rinsing. Then I started to notice that the suds can not be rinsed thoroughly regardless how much running water I use and what temperature, and during the cooking process a soapy foam was forming in my food! So I am. 100% agree with the last post - cold water can not rinse all the soap and the boiling water during cooking release it. Just google "boiling (potatoes, eggs or whatever)" and you will see what I mean. Most people eat soap without even realising it, because of improper washing and rinsing their dishes
 
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  • #16
amaliya said:
during the cooking process a soapy foam was forming in my food! So I am. 100% agree with the last post - cold water can not rinse all the soap and the boiling water during cooking release it. Just google "boiling (potatoes, eggs or whatever)" and you will see what I mean. Most people eat soap without even realising it, because of improper washing and rinsing their dishes

In most cases foaming is not related to the soap used for washing dishes, but to natural surfactants present in the food and released during boiling.

So in a way - yes, we are eating soaps all the time. No, using hot water for rinsing won't change it.
 
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  • #17
boiling-potatoes.jpg


boiling-potatoes.jpg

Natural surfactants from the food, right?
 
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  • #18
Quite possible.

When you boil peeled potatoes they foam like crazy. If you boil them without peeling it is enough that one has a broken skin for the surfactants to get released.

It doesn't mean the foam in the second picture can't be from the poorly washed sud, you just can't ignore other sources (especially when they are present in your pot).
 
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  • #19
As there is no agreement, cold uses no water heater energy, better for the environment!
 
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  • #20
"So, first: what is the underlying mechanism by which water removes soap?" Soap creates a polar molecule which creates a cage around nonpolar molecules like fats, which then allow this structure (the micelle) to associate with water, a polar molecule. It is the electromagnetic attraction between oppositely charged molecules (the micelles and the water) that allows a fat to "dissolve" in water, which without that electromagnetic attraction, would not associate. Hotter water means more interactions between molecules in the solution. But cold water and hot water, in typical temperatures, are going to exert practically the same amount of electromagnetic influence because the difference in availability of hydrogen bonding sites with be nil. In other words, one L of cold water and one L of hot water have the virtually the same number of interactions. The hot water will allow lipids with a high melting point to disassociate and present themselves to soap or water molecules. But micelles will form quite readily relatively large lipid droplets.

The previous poster's comment about mechanical action strikes me as most significant in terms of separating a lipid particulate in a solution it wouldn't normally dissolve in. With hot water most fats (lipids) do not really "dissolve". They merely melt from a solid to liquid and spread out, and you flush everything down the drain (which then recogeals somewhere down the line.)

Being in a situation for many years where hot water was not an option led me to brands like Ecover which is not a soap, but a mixture of other things, surfactants and ethanol, in particular. It works beautifully without hot water at all. For environmental reasons as well as efficiency, the best option is a formulation which doesn't require the heating of water. I would argue many of the "old" brands of soap on the shelf are merely out-dated and ineffective formulas which nevertheless continue to sell because people tend to be habitual...
 
  • #21
I have read all the comments and I am still no closer to which is better for rinsing disher. I think hot would be better over all in making sure all residue is removed from dishes. But cold water is cheaper to use but does it do as good a job of removing all residue from dishes?
 
  • #22
I am afraid this is one of these questions where there is no simple and definitive answer - differences are probably pretty small and quite difficult to measure, plus they depend on several factors that are not guaranteed to be identical between households.

All in all - when using washer machine it is not my problem, as I am using one the preset programs. When I do dishes on my own I rinse with a water that is warm enough to be not unpleasant on the hands. I doubt anyone will be able to get a more rigorous answer.
 
  • #23
This thread has a lot of unsubstantiated opinion.

Some foods have bacterial risk and other parasites inherently associated with them. Example: Salmonella on raw chicken, raw chicken eggs, or raw beef.
The bacteria get there largely from a single point of contamination and then spread by processing and handling to other products.

I chose an extreme example below. Please do not completely go off the deep end and assume all meat and egg products everywhere are a death sentence.

www.ifrj.upm.edu.my/24%20(01)%202017/(58).pdf - This is a Malaysian paper showing that products sold in retail outlets have some level of testing positive for Salmonella serovars. The rate increased with different retail sources to a maximum of over 80% of samples.

When you process meat with a bacterial problem, the cutting surface, and local environs like: walls, counters, implements, clothing and hands - all become a source of additional transmission of bacteria to other non-infected foods.

In Albuquerque, New Mexico (US) there are regulations about cleaning machines, prep surfaces, dishes, utensils, etc., using detergents, antiseptic cleansers and 160°F hot water. For food handlers. There is also a required food safety course for food handlers.

There are similar Salmonella reports from other places with lower numbers.

You can reasonably get perturbed about prepared raw eggs used to make scrambled eggs in homes and restaurants. This raw egg product is in groceries and "cash and carries" locally. I have no information on this outside the US.

How this occurs: For example, assume a Salmonella infection rate in laying chickens of 1 in 10000. The places that produce raw egg products are very careful. But because huge numbers of eggs are broken into large vats, the possibility of the 1 in 10000 bad egg getting mixed in with the other 50 liters of egg does exist. So the eggs produced from that vat can have unwanted bacteria. One of the local chef schools has a free seminar on this problem, I believe. They advise cooking all liquid egg products to "hard", about 160°F.
[aside]
How many eggs in 50 liters? USDA egg grading system, with "large" eggs:
Very approximately 1056 eggs. Chickens are not precise in the volume any given egg. They can't do math very well. So weight of whole eggs is used instead.
[/aside]

If you prepare food (including veggies) at home, you should use bleach (or another antiseptic ) and detergent, wash in hot water, rinse in hot water.

Vegetarians are not immune to food borne pathogens. Example: Chicken manure and chicken manure tea can be sources of Salmonella. So vegetables grown organically using manure tea can have problems, too. See an interesting good pop science article about backyard chickens:
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesal...-chickens-cute-trendy-spreaders-of-salmonella

In my house: we use about a 5% bleach by volume added to hot water and dish detergent for everything we wash.
 
  • #24
jim mcnamara said:
In Albuquerque, New Mexico (US) there are regulations about cleaning machines, prep surfaces, dishes, utensils, etc., using detergents, antiseptic cleansers and 160°F hot water.

Quite a serious reason to not move to Albuquerque, I am not going to boil my hands washing dishes in 160°F (71°C) water. That's hot enough for serious injuries.
 
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  • #25
@Borek - they use dishwashing machines. You are right, you could not handwash at that temperature. :smile:
 
  • #26
I did not really answer the original question. @mark dossett :
You want tap hot water, detergent and bleach in the wash water. You should wear gloves of some sort. The warm bleach detergent solution is not good to your skin, long term. First off, and of immediate notice, it will start saponify any fats or natural oils on the skin surface.

Do not play with the temperature setting on your hot water heater, someone can get hurt.
Just start with hot as it gets, add bleach etc. Wash, rinse in as hot as you can get without hurting yourself. FWIW - US only there is currently a warning about E coli contaminated pre-prepped romaine lettuce. CDC advisory:

https://www.cdc.gov/ecoli/2018/o157h7-04-18/index.html

Translation: throw out any bagged cut romaine lettuce you have, and any bagged lettuce like substance when you are not postive about it's identity.
 
  • #27
For something that is a relatively simple thing we do nearly every day I think this is an interesting discussion.

Just to throw another variable into the mix - Hot water is almost always 'softer' than cold water because some of the dissolved solids are left in the water heater. This also probably affects the ability of water to rinse away soap (I am not a chemical engineer, electrical actually). How might this affect the way soap reacts to water?

From what I recently read, trying to understand how water softeners work, soap bonds to ions from dissolved particles and this is how it works to remove material we don't want on our clothes and dishes - dirt and food particles. Hard water has more strong ions in it that tag along for the ride from the water source so it binds with the soap readily, reducing it's effectiveness. Using soft water, with electro-chemically weaker sodium ions put into the water when the stronger ions (calcium, iron, sulfur...) were removed, allows soap to work better because more of the soap in the solution is available to remove dirt and food.

When rinsing, the ions in the water should bond with the soap and remove it more readily if there are simply more ions in the water. Adding heat makes chemical reactions happen more quickly but adding hot water gives fewer ions per volume of water thanks to the water heater tank. I think we have two variables working against each other here, and I am not adding any information to help resolve this question. : )

Regarding the idea of dishes being 'squeaky' clean: Friction that leads to chattering when two surfaces slide over one another only means that the bonding between the surfaces is high, not that it is 'clean' (clean being a very subjective word here). A plate can have calcium ions bonded to it's surface and our skin will not readily slide over it, but is this really clean or simply a different type of surface contamination? I think the surface is probably always holding something but we would need to see microscopically what it there to find out if it is soap or other minerals from the water.
 
  • #28
As long as the water is at a comfortable temperature for putting your hands in to, the dishes get washed.
They don't wash themselves at some specific temperature.
 
  • #29
James Kaye said:
From what I recently read, trying to understand how water softeners work, soap bonds to ions from dissolved particles and this is how it works to remove material we don't want on our clothes and dishes - dirt and food particles.

Sounds like you are confusing two things here - one is purely chemical reaction of soaps with metal ions (which produce precipitate), second is soap's intermolecular interaction with dirt and grease. And neither of these is related to the water softeneres.

While yes, there exist a process which softens water in the heaters, the hardness difference between water before and after heating is in general negligible, if it were substantial you would need to replace the heater every few days as it would get clogged immediately.
 
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  • #30
I'm environmentally conscious (I'm cheap), I use cold water. Not too much soap (need more water and time to rinse) and not too little soap (not enough and the dishes don't clean well and the dishes spot) premixed with water with a touch of bleach to kill stuff in a small container in the small sink of a double sink. Dishes rinsed, stacked and filled with water to prevent stuff from drying before bed, washed in morning. Spoons and such disinfect in the soap/bleach water overnight. We have a nice new dishwasher but after a week or two of use dishes are now washed by hand.

And of course, air dried.
 
  • #31
One should always specify the function that one is optimizing - in dish washing it is usually minimizing stuff other than the dishes left on them (residues and contaminants) while also minimizing human effort and time. By comparison, costs of hot water and other consumables are not a big deal.

Before I was a scholar, I was a dishwasher - I estimate I washed about a million dishes in a variety of commercial and residential systems. How water trumps cold - other factors being equal (but they seldom are). For hand washing, good water pressure and an industrial and convenient sprayer (hanging from well above the sink) are more important than the temperature of the water. Other system elements to minimize handling after dishes are rinsed are also important, as every handling step potentially introduces contaminants.

But neglecting the importance of water temperature assumes that each and every dish has been perfectly washed and only needs to have the soap removed. It ain't so. Depending on the system, between 1 and 10% of dishes come out still dirty. High pressure hot water in a proper sprayer solves that quickly better than cold water in the same system so that fewer dishes have to go back to the start of the dish cleaning process.

But I got to admit, maybe the hard water in New Orleans gives me a different answer than the soft water in Baton Rouge. Maybe Louisiana cuisine (tends to be fatty) has a different answer than other places. The answer with good industrial sinks and sprayers may be different from slow running tap water at home.
 
  • #32
Is the optimum water temperature actually determined by the surfactant chemistry and the rate of reaction required?

Why is the term “soap” used? Soap is mild as it contains hydrated fats and oils. If the surfactant used was chemically more aggressive, such as an hydroxide, then would the product of the washing process not be a “soap”, suspended in the water?

Should the mass of surfactant used be proportional to the surface area of the item being cleaned, the surface area of the food particles, or to the mass of fat and/or oil remaining to be removed. If all have to be satisfied, should the mass of surfactant be proportional to the sum of all the above?
 
  • #33
Sandra55k said:
As there is no agreement, cold uses no water heater energy, better for the environment!

Ah, but if you take a "whole systems approach", and note that it might take more cold water than hot water, and therefore take more pumping power, that might even it out some. Maybe not a lot, but perhaps that should be considered.
 
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  • #34
Being the dude that hand washes dishes while my wife handles the cooking. Being that we live in the desert. I hand wash with Dawn dish washing liquid after soaking dishes for a 1/2 hour or more in scalding hot water. Then rinse dishes using the cold water from tap on the sink. Scrubbing everything vigorously.

Drip dry in a basket. No one gets sick. We are grand parents. Food born sickness is life threatening.
I don't over think this kind of stuff.

My Mom taught me how to wash dishes and pots and pans as a kid. I also worked as a dishwasher after finishing my paper route as a kid. So I am semi professional.
 

What is the best temperature of water for rinsing dishes?

The best temperature of water for rinsing dishes is hot water, ideally between 110-140 degrees Fahrenheit. This temperature helps to remove any remaining food particles and grease from the dishes.

Is it necessary to use hot water for rinsing dishes?

Yes, it is necessary to use hot water for rinsing dishes. Hot water helps to kill any remaining bacteria on the dishes, making them safe for use.

Can I use cold water for rinsing dishes?

While cold water can be used for rinsing dishes, it is not as effective as hot water. Cold water does not remove grease and food particles as well as hot water, and it does not kill bacteria.

What temperature of water is too hot for rinsing dishes?

Water above 140 degrees Fahrenheit is considered too hot for rinsing dishes. This temperature can cause damage to some dishes and can also be dangerous for handling.

Can I use warm water for rinsing dishes?

Warm water, between 90-110 degrees Fahrenheit, can be used for rinsing dishes. However, it is not as effective as hot water and may not fully remove all food particles and bacteria.

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