Over time, knives, forks and spoons will become dull if you clean them in the dishwasher. To get them shiny again, you can use a soft cloth and polish the cutlery. But there isn’t really time for this in our hectic everyday lives. A simple trick provides the solution: a little aluminum foil in the cutlery basket of the dishwasher is supposed to prevent this problem. But is this really true?
Dishwasher: both a blessing and a curse
Dishwashers make household chores much easier and are indispensable for many people. Nevertheless, not everything always runs smoothly: cloudy glasses, food residue on the dishes, tabs that don’t dissolve properly and, above all, lackluster cutlery are among the most common problems.
Who has the time or inclination to polish every single spoon or fork by hand? It’s much quicker and much easier with the following dishwasher trick. Simply crumple up some aluminum foil into a small ball and place it in the cutlery basket of the dishwasher. Make sure that the shiny side of the aluminum foil is facing outwards.
What aluminum foil does in the dishwasher
If you start the dishwasher with the aluminum foil ball in the cutlery basket, your cutlery will shine like new after the wash cycle. But why is that? It’s simple: the metal in the aluminum foil reacts with the chemical components of the dishwasher detergent. This results in an oxidation process that makes the cutlery look like new.
Placing some aluminum foil in your dishwasher also prevents rust stains from forming on the cutlery. This is because so-called flash rust, which can be deposited on the cutlery by metal rods and screws in the dishwasher, but also by screws on inferior cooking pots, is absorbed by the aluminum foil. In this case, the aluminium foil acts as a kind of lightning rod, as it oxidizes more easily than the higher quality stainless steel cutlery and is more “susceptible” to rust.
Note: Unfortunately, existing rust stains cannot be removed using this dishwasher trick. Even with low-quality cutlery, you will not achieve any significant success using aluminum foil.
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How you can prevent rust
To prevent rust, it is advisable to identify and remove all possible sources of flash rust in the dishwasher. Chipped areas on the casing of the dishwasher baskets, for example, are a typical source of rust. Here, the metal needs to be sanded down and resealed. Alternatively, you can also replace the dishwasher baskets if they are too rusty. You should also wash frying pans and saucepans with rusty handles or screws by hand to protect the rest of the dishes in the dishwasher from rust.
Rusty or dull cutlery is a thing of the past with this simple trick. By the way: If the aluminum foil ball turns dark in the dishwasher, it’s time to replace it with a new one. Have you ever tried this household tip?
Sources: freundin, chip, hausjournal
