when hand washing dishes, how hot should the rinse water be, and why?
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As hot as your hands’ heat tolerance and water heating budget allow, as whatever particulates you’re trying to clean from your dishes get more soluble with increased temperature and will thus be easier to remove.
Any temperature you want. You specified the rinse water and so since they have already been washed in hot water they don’t need to be sanitised again. The hotter the water the faster they will dry in the rack and better job the water will do at removing the residual food-stuff but the dishes are already clean to the point nothing is stuck anymore and is simply being rinsed.
Wash in hot rinse in cold. They should already be clean after you washed them and cold rinse water leaves less spots
It’s the soap more than the water that cleans the dishes. And it’s not actually a bad thing if a tiny bit of food or germ residue is left. It might actually improve health.
https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/840268
As someone who worked in kitchens and have a high hand heat tolerance, your wash and rinse water should make lava feel cold.
From what I’ve read, hot water isn’t what kills the germs. It’s the soap. Though hot water will allow the dishes to dry faster since the water will evaporate quicker. So there’s a less likely chance for bacteria to grow in the residual moisture left on the drying dishes.
I rinse in scalding water because my water heater produces it and I’m lazy so using the hottest water means I can walk away for 10 minutes and let everything dry on its own without a towel
This whole post made me question why kitchen sinks are made from metal whereas bathroom sinks are made from ceramic. Hmmm
As Europeans we just had American family over, they insisted on rinsing all the plates before putting them in the dishwasher. We never do that. Why do you rinse everything?
According to the [“three pot technique”](https://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2017/03/30/how-to-wash-dishes-at-campsite/), the final rinse is cool but it also has bleach, or another sanitizing agent.
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