Have a Newer Dishwasher? Don’t Pre-Rinse

To pre-rinse or not to pre-rinse: it’s the question that’s been the source of many a household disagreement. But if you have a newer dishwasher, the answer is clear – don’t do it. That’s because newer dishwashers include something called a turbidity sensor. When the dishwasher first comes on, it splashes a lot of water around and the turbidity sensor actually tells the dishwasher how dirty that water is and then adjusts the cycle time and the amount of soap to clean that level of dirtiness, so to speak. So if you pre-rinse the dishes and you remove all that easy-to-get-off stuff so that only the really hard gunk remains, the dishwasher’s not going to properly detect the gunk level, and won’t run as long as is needed to clean it away.