when hand washing dishes, how hot should the rinse water be, and why?
In: 274
According to my gramma it should melt your flesh…. If you’re doing dishes at her house she’ll sneak a hand in at random and promptly turn on the hot water if it doesn’t scald
Unless you are in a food service environment where you are required to sanitize dishes, in which case a machine or a dip with sanitizer solution is doing that, you can wash them cold. No human can tolerate water hot enough to kill germs.
It takes water temps of 149 degrees to kill germs. Most human skin will get 3rd degree burns with 2 seconds of exposure of of 150 degree water.
It doesn’t really matter. It’s the soap that’s mostly killing the germs, not the heat. But hotter water will help the soap and gunk dissolve and rinse off better. So use comfortably hot water but mostly make sure it gets nice and soapy. In commercial food settings the water does have to be very hot for maximum sterilizing and to make sure as much gunk dissolves off as possible. At home, you don’t have to reach such crazy high standards.
Washing dishes in a kitchen in california.
1. Scrape (no water)
2. Wash/soak (soap, hot water)
3. Rinse (no soap, warm water)
4. Sanitize (sanitizer, room temp water)
5. Air dry (elevated, vertical, let gravity work)
That’s how I learned it and how every kitchen I’ve encountered do it. I’m pretty sure it state mandated to do it this way though.
For rinse water there are a few good reasons for hot water. Hot water is better at getting rid of soap and is quicker to dry dishes, both important since at home you’re likely skipping the sanitizer portion which would be last.
For the actual cleaning portion, it’s just plain better at cleaning stuff so you’ll need less soap, less effort and all of this is so much better on your dishes.
Some wild comments in here. Living things need food and water. If you remove the food from your plates, cutlery and dishes, then it doesn’t matter if it takes a bit longer to dry as there is nothing left to promote growth. Rinse in cold water to save energy. Washing in hot water makes it easier to remove the food, so I wear rubber gloves. I only ever rinse with hot if I’m rinsing over the washing up sink with more stuff to wash. Don’t dry with a towel if you can avoid it as that will deposit more stuff onto the dishes.
Dishes don’t need to be sterilised unless you are immune compromised.
Depends on your priorities. To save energy and money, cold rinse works fine for me. I just let dishes drain in the wire rack until they are dry and have never noticed any pathogens start growing during this time.
If you are going to towel dry the dishes immediately, or if you leave your dishes on towels to dry overnight (ewww), hot rinse makes sense for speed and keeping the towels dryer.
Dish detergents (and those for laundry) for home use are made to be effective at low temperatures. Hot water helps soften fat to where the detergent can take hold of it, warm water is more comfortable to work with than cold.
But what little extra germ-reducing effect you might get by increasing the temperature of your washing or rinsing water, it’s not worth it compared to the damage to your skin. Bacteria are usually hardier than humans and the temperature needed to kill spores can’t be achieved in the sink anyways.
Save energy, be nice to your hands, the cleaning effect is from scrubbing the dishes, not the temperature. Even just sterile water and cloths to rub surfaces with can get a germ-reduction as good as using a disinfectant, disinfectant is plain faster. Hot dishes dry faster, but that doesn’t make a difference in hygiene. If there’s gunk left on there that could harbor germs, that small spike in temperature won’t change anything.
The nasty thing in your dish routine is the sponge/brush/rag. *That*’s where the bacteria happily multiply between uses, not the dry, smooth surfaces of dishes. Sponges are the worst, humid, lots of surface, protected pockets that never get fully clean. Paradise for germs.
What I learned a long time ago in college chemistry was that a soap molecule has a hydrophilic end and a hydrophobic end, meaning one end likes water and one end doesn’t, but it likes oil. This means soap acts like a bridge between oils which are not water soluble and the water. Which is how it removes oil when washing. However, if you rinse in hot water , it somewhat reduces the effectiveness, so you usually want to rinse in cold water so one end of the soap will cling to the oil and wash away.
It does not matter one bit. Soap suds will dissipate better with cold water. You will never get the water hot enough to sanitize past what the soap has already done. Don’t listen to all the people saying hot water is necessary. It does nothing below boiling hot. And it won’t evaporate faster.
Latest Answers