The Best Way to Load a Dishwasher According to Scientific Research

Kate Yoshida of MinuteFood consulted with appliance expert Dr. Rainer Stamminger, a professor in the Institute of Agricultural Engineering at the University of Bonn, and appliance repair technician Renae DuHaime to determine the best way to load a dishwasher according to scientific research.

We dug into the science of dishwashers to finally put an end to all your dishwasher debates.

Yoshida started her query by putting a GoPro through an active dishwasher cycle to see how the dishwasher in her own home worked and explained every step of the cycle, noting how temperature, water rotation, and detergent work together to remove stubborn food stains. She also offered some helpful solutions regarding the washing of dishes.

You want to put your dishes close together to maximize the amount of stuff you can fit in there, but not too close, because you don’t want to block those little streams of water from actually getting stuff clean. If you don’t have a full load, a haphazard approach isn’t that big a deal – just avoid overlapping dishes that are particularly dirty.

She also addressed the placement of utensils.

Let’s talk utensils: should they go in eating-surface down, or eating-surface up? This according to the experts, direction doesn’t actually matter; your utensils should get clean whether they’re facing up or down – and this was basically confirmed by the vaguely-scientific tests I ran. What DOES matter is keeping utensils from snuggling tight together – in other words, don’t let your spoons “spoon” – because again, water won’t be able to get between them.