The best way to wash dishes onboard?

[TAW02]

I know ... kinda dull subject.

Searching for a better way to do dishes/pots/pans/bowls et cetra. Seems if you do disposable tableware, you end up with twice the trash bags to store until making port where you can dumpster them.

Personally, I choose to use washable everything! No disposable tableware products. My wife is quite a cook/chef and cooks full size meals aboard both breakfast and dinner.

I am the dishwasher! The price I pay for eating well.

So what I do is put all dishes/pots/pans and so forth into a netted bait keeper (minus the silverware) and toss it overboard and tie-off the drawstrings to the stern cleat. Works well at anchor and overnight. Small snails most of the time get in through the netting and actually scrub most of the rubbish from the dishes. The rest of the overnight process breaks down and disolves most all food. Next morning (while the wife is busy with breakfast), I fill a small office waste basket (used only for the purpose of washing dishes) with Joy detergent & ocean water. Haul in the makeshift dishwasher (Bait keeper) and do a quick wash and rinse using fresh water I've drained from the ice cooler. Then I use Clorox antibacterial wipes on each dish as a final step before putting them away for breakfast and dinner.

This makes a real big difference in how much garbage you end up with at the end of a 4 day cruise!



Big T

[Sumner]

I use to do a fair amount of backpacking and found that you don't need much water to clean and it doesn't have to be hot. We probably only use 1-2 cups of water to wash dishes and pots and pans for the two of us. If the weather isn't real hot, above 75, we only use about 1 gallon of water total a day for the two of us and that is drinking water and water to wash the dishes, no shower water in that, but some of that does go to a wipe down with a wash cloth in the morning.

We wash all of the dishes immediately after a meal before food can stick to them and wash usually without soap. At this point there is no bacteria on your plate as you were just eating off of it a few minutes earlier. With the dish clean it is then rinsed off with fresh water and dried. It is amazing how little water you actually need to wash and do a good job. At home with the faucet running I'll use more water on one dish that I do on the boat for a whole meals worth.

We will wash with just a couple squirts from the sink hand pump on one of those sponges that is rough on one side. Water that goes off the dish you are washing goes onto/into the ones below it. Once all the food is removed the dish will be rotated under a couple more squirts under the faucet saving that water into something else. Then rinse from one to the other with the same water. Dry immediately.

If you have food in pans you cook with put a little water in them while they are still warm. If you use soap it just takes more water to get it off. When done our dishes and pans are always spotless. Remember hot water doesn't make washing any safer. If you can stick your hand in the water it isn't hot enough to kill much. The whole idea is to get the food off your plate so nothing can grow there. Lots of water, hot water and soap are just luxuries and if you want to stay out a long time and not have to return for water you can get by with very little and still never have to worry about getting sick from eating off your plates.

Clean immediately after a meal and it is easy.

c ya,

Sum

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[Chinook]

Lots of ways to be water efficient in doing dishes. We do use paper plates and bowls when we're in areas where a small trash fire below the tide line on the beach is an option. We try to minimize dirty pots and pans when possible by preparing meals in advance and storing them in boilable seal-a-meal bags. We don't usually make up a basin of wash water. Instead, just a drop of biodegradable dish soap on a sponge, dipped into a small pan of clean hot water. The hot water helps get grease and oils off. A very small amount of warm water is needed for rinse, catching it in the pan as each dish is rinsed. Some sailor friends of ours use a neat trick. They keep a vinegar solution in a spray bottle. They spray dishes which have been washed in soapy water with the vinegar solution and do no further rinse. The mildly acidic vinegar acts as a sanitizing agent, and also quickly cuts the soap bubbles.

[AKCoastie]

Double check the warnings on the Clorex wipes before you use them again. A coworker gave me a good talking to because I used them to wipe my hands once (they were the Lysol ones though I think). The warning on the back said that using them on anything that touches food is a big no no. Plain diluted bleach is no biggy but the fragrances and additives are bad for you.

[Sumner]

I realize we have been inundated with commercials for using sanitizing agents all over our homes, but could someone please explain why we need them when we wash dishes?

Let's assume that a dish is clean before we start eating. We put food on it and eat off of it. The meal is over 5-10 minutes later we wash that food off the plate with just plain old water (hot or cold). We can see the plate is clean. We dry it and put it up for the next meal.

So what/why are we sanitizing when we wash? The plate didn't have germs on it when we ate the food that we felt safe eating a few minutes before. 5-10 minutes after eating that food the plate is clean again with no food left on it to start bacterial growth. We put it up until the next meal. It seems if you were really worried you would sanitize it right before using it after it had been sitting.

I get a cold about once every two years. I don't sanitize everything in the house. Most of us older guys/gals on here grew up before all the commercials told us we needed to spray every corner of our house. Were we any more sick then than now.

I use cold water to rinse dishes at each meal at home. I wash in hot with or without soap and that is mainly because the hot water feels good on my hands. It isn't killing germs. Hot water and soap helps to remove food and if we can do it by washing with cold water before it is crusted on the hot water isn't needed in my opinion.

Ok, I'll get down off the soapbox and let someone else have it ,

Sum

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[Boblee]

Normally just lift a bucket of salt/fresh water up and wash the dishes in that and then rinse off with the minimum amount of stored filtered water in the sink, most meals are easy but I like porridge for brekky so thats a bit harder to get off the pot and sometimes is better left to soak.
As Sumner says if you do it quickly there is no real drama and not a lot of water is needed but we do carry 200L which usually lasts two weeks out but could last double and more if we had to.
Body washing is just the minimum and wipe with a hand washer as most of our cruising is in the Northern waters swimming is a no no but the water is ok to wash in.

[Laika 26X]

I say place 'em all in a mesh bag, over the side on a line and let the fish pick 'em clean.
Rinse either with rum, tequila, vodka or even Guinness Stout.

[SkiDeep2001]

Rinse either with rum, tequila, vodka or even Guinness Stout.

I just let my cat RC lick them clean, then I rinse my mouth with the above cleaners. Is it OK to swallow Rob

[TAW02]

I am enjoying reading all these comments ... thanks fellahs!

[Kelly Hanson East]

One my one week cruises, with 6 up, we wash all our dishes after dinner. One quart of hot water brought to boiling, about one pint mixed with one pint of cold in the galley sink (rubber stopper in bottom)

Rinse excess food off first with seawater in a bucket in the cockpit.

Dishes for 6, plus any dishes from earlier in day are washed and then rinsed in succession with fresh cold water - about another pint total.

Left over water makes a nice cup of French press coffee after dinner.

[puggsy]

When on the beach, scrub them in the beach sand....even detergent is not needed...

[DaveB]

Since i assume you are sailing in Salt water, use salt water and Joy, Joy sudes up and cleans than use your fresh water to rince.You can also wash yourself and hair with Joy.
All bio degradable.
You can put a seawater foot pump at sink to make things easier and use both hands but that requires a thruhull fitting. I had one on my Alberg and loved it, pump is the Whale Gusher. Or the bucket in cockpit works for us on the Mac.
Dave

I know ... kinda dull subject.

Searching for a better way to do dishes/pots/pans/bowls et cetra. Seems if you do disposable tableware, you end up with twice the trash bags to store until making port where you can dumpster them.

Personally, I choose to use washable everything! No disposable tableware products. My wife is quite a cook/chef and cooks full size meals aboard both breakfast and dinner.

I am the dishwasher! The price I pay for eating well.

So what I do is put all dishes/pots/pans and so forth into a netted bait keeper (minus the silverware) and toss it overboard and tie-off the drawstrings to the stern cleat. Works well at anchor and overnight. Small snails most of the time get in through the netting and actually scrub most of the rubbish from the dishes. The rest of the overnight process breaks down and disolves most all food. Next morning (while the wife is busy with breakfast), I fill a small office waste basket (used only for the purpose of washing dishes) with Joy detergent & ocean water. Haul in the makeshift dishwasher (Bait keeper) and do a quick wash and rinse using fresh water I've drained from the ice cooler. Then I use Clorox antibacterial wipes on each dish as a final step before putting them away for breakfast and dinner.

This makes a real big difference in how much garbage you end up with at the end of a 4 day cruise!



Big T

[verena]

We added a Y-valve to our galley sink hose. The second hose gets hung into the ballast tank so we can use saltwater while doing dishes. When the dishes are clean switch back to freshwater hose and rinse!