I recommend using either vinegar or baking soda. If you use both, you get a fizzy reaction where these components neutralize each other and if you use exactly a correct amount of both, you get nothing but salty water (as the reaction leaves behind water, sodium acetate and CO2; sodium acetate doesn’t have much cleaning properties IIRC).
If you’ve been wondering, the cleaning properties of your blend arise from the fact you really don’t use the exact amounts to precisely neutralize the two components, leaving you with either mildly acidic water + vinegar solution or mildly basic water + baking soda solution in the glass, depending on which you used more.
You get pretty much the exact results more effectively if you leave just some water and baking soda overnight (I recommend baking soda, since often the glasses turn dim because of tiny amounts of wine residue remaining in the glass; since wine is acidic and baking soda is basic, a baking soda solution neutralizes these acids, making them soluble in the water).
A commercial product Lemi Shine works perfectly in the dishwasher on a low or crystal temperature with no heated drying and a polishing cloth works perfectly every time…
I get amazingly clean glasses out of my dishwasher. They are not deeply stained to start, but I am really surprised at how nicely the Zalto clean up. Soft water in the San Francisco Bay Area, I am sure that makes a difference…
I have had good luck with Five Star PBW which I order online. I submerge and soak glasses in water with PBW for a couple of hours then sponge off the lifted residue. Gets the glasses close to new. It works decently in decanters but you still need to do minimal surface scrubbing which is not always possible, depending on shape of the decanter.
Seconded. After hand washing (and breaking) several Zalto’s and GGG’s, I recently converted to putting all my glassware into the dishwasher, and now can’t believe I didn’t start earlier. Took one wash to get out all the accumulated stains. Also in the Bay Area fwiw…
How does everyone put their glasses in the dishwasher? I was hoping to find a rack like in a commercial dishwasher that would fit in a home dishwasher. I have a Bosch and it has the spot to hold wine glasses but that didn’t get my hard water stains off particularly well.
I’ve been heavily into wine for over 15 years and have never had wine stains in glasses or decanters. I’ve even left red wine in a glass that dried out for a few days. I always hand wash with a kitchen sponge and dish soap. As long as I rinse well in hot water, they always come out squeaky clean with zero taste or odor effects. I did, however, go to a friend’s house who was also a wino and his glasses were all slightly stained. I watched him once as we wrapped up and he basically did the hot-water-rub-a-little-with-no-soap-with-my-hand style “cleaning.” Gross. Left a very slight pinkish purple tint on his stems, none of which I ever wanted to use again.
Our Bosch has a wine glass section on the right of the upper rack, only holds 4 glasses. You can’t use the third utensil rack if doing wine glasses. We have hard water so I add salt, but I don’t use a drying agent. Usually works well just need to towel off a little moisture on the base or rim. I can’t imagine a dishwasher removing hard water stains.
This is one of the key points I forgot to mention. I broke several of the Zalto previously trying to hand wash (just do not have the manual dexterity). Also, many other glasses. With the dishwasher, zero breakage after about 1 year (using the Zalto’s every night now).
My dishwasher is a General Electric. I position the glasses so they are positioned on a central peg and then lean back against two of the pegs. So not a perfect fit like a Bosch I guess, and using up a bit of extra space. But the come out immaculate every time, and as I say, no breakage…
Also, the soft water is key. Washing with East Bay Municipal Water District water, from the Hetchy Hetchy Reservoir (or nearby), nice soft snow melt…
A spoonful of citric acid in the dishwasher (no soap required) and you can buy it on Amazon. Most tasting rooms use it - works great! Polish the clean stems with a lint-free cloth.
If you have wine stains, you can use bleach. Some glasses get discolored around the rim or the bottom of the bowl. Bleach is just fine and you won’t scratch the glass.
If the stains are from hard water, that’s a different issue and vinegar can work.
If you are using EBMUD water then it’s from the Mokolomne river. If you have gone to the eastern sierra on Highway 108 over Sonora Pass, than you have gone by some of the reservoirs storing water. A spectacular pass BTW.
The nice thing about living in the San Francisco Bay Area is that the water is forgiving on glassware I used to use just hot water except for stains, and use soap only when guests had been over. In the covidium it’s soap and water every time.
Thanks! I’d hoped to order an extra set of the Bosch stem holders for my
new machine (so I could wash 8 instead of 4 glasses), as I had for a GE machine, but the friggin’ upper rack on the Bosch is made in a way to prevent the addition of holders for four more glasses. This should address that shortcoming.