I gave him a chore this morning... At first he was happy about it, but then he wanted to lick one. That's when things went downhill...
Sure they smell great, but it's soap, kid!
Homemade Dishtabs
I was sick of spending so much money on dish tabs for the dishwasher. Powders made a film on the dishes and since our water softener is on the fritz until the guy comes to install the new one, this is working out slick. I've made a few batches before in the past year and can't fathom spending money on tabs anymore.
Or laundry soap or hand soap for that matter...
So anyway, here is my recipe. I've used one that I found online and tweaked it.
1 cup Borax
1 cup Washing Soda
1 cup coarse ground salt
1/2 to 3/4 cup lemon juice
It needs to be packable, so I just glugged some more lemon juice in until it mashed together nicely, thus the range. Use plastic or rubber gloves to mix it all up really well. You don't want flavor pockets in this stuff.
On a large cookie sheet, lay out some wax paper. Place the mixture on the wax paper and flatten using another sheet of wax paper and a rolling pin until the mixture is about 1/4 inch thick.
Cut into little 1/2 inch squares and let dry at least 24 hours. Then they'll break up nicely and you can store them in the old container that you got dish tabs in from Sam's Club. Keep dry. A batch makes at least 100.
When I use them, I drop in one tab and a couple Tablespoons of more coarse ground salt as well as a glug or two of white vinegar. Those two items help keep film off the glasses too. I've experimented and that's the right combo for my dishwasher.
This is super concentrated, so just a little tab should do the trick. If your glasses come out with a fine powder on them, then the tabs are either too big (just break them up) or you're not dumping in enough course salt. Experiment.
Let me know if you do this already and how you make yours!
Word of advice... No matter how cute they look and how lemony they smell... Don't eat them.
5 comments:
"IF" I ever run out of all my free at CVS dishwasher tabs I will try this. I hate spending good money on things like cleaning agents and paper products.
As I rarely use our dishwasher, this is something I would have no use for.
This is something I am going to try. Liquid doesn't work well for our dishwasher, so I am always buying tabs. We go through a lot of dishes and I can only imagine how many you guys go through!
Thanks for emailing me the recipe. I'm glad you've put it here so I can pin it and never lose it. Yeah, right.
Hmmm...wonder if I could just make them with extra coarse salt added. Hubby does the dishes and prefers the tabs. I could convince him to use homemade, but I don't know if he would want to add the extra salt and vinegar. He likes quick and easy. (and since he does the dishes, I am happy to oblige.)
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