Dish Soap Rinsing

RoyS

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Jun 3, 2012
1,739
Hunter 33 Steamboat Wharf, Hull, MA
Watching our fresh water consumption while cruising revealed that most of our limited, precious water is used to wash and rinse dishes. We can shower with about 1-1/2 gallons each. We have fifty gallons to start. Washing and rinsing pots and dishes consumes the majority of our water, in particular, rinsing. Does anyone know of dish soap that rinses off with less water? Any other suggestions?
 

DougM

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Jul 24, 2005
2,242
Beneteau 323 Manistee, MI
I can think of some less than constructive ideas like use paper plates, don’t cook on the boat, and don’t do the dishes. None of which will meet the approval of the boss.

I wonder if dishwasher soap, and/or diluted rinse aid would even work. It seems like modern dishwashers use far less water…
 
Mar 26, 2011
3,399
Corsair F-24 MK I Deale, MD
Backpackers, who often must carry all of their water on dry stretches, learn to was dishes with only a few ounces of water.
  • Scrape and otherwise clean them first. On a boat, scrubbing them with seawater obviously works. Use soap or don't. You can do this in a shallow tub, or as we often did, on a swim platform.
  • Do you really need soap? You may not. How much? Probably very, very, very little.
  • Use a spray bottle for rinsing. Only a few squirts should be needed if you did the above.
  • Do you need to wash all dishes? Plates that have only held a roll or sandwich may just need wiped off.
  • Minimize the number of plates. When solo, eating from the pan is fine. Serving from the pot is fine. One/bowl for all the courses.
You don't need to do all these things, but they all help. Pick and chose. The main thing is to FORGET all of your home habits and think about what functionally must be accomplished. Don't try to take house habits on the water or backpacking. They don't make sense.

And not cooking and paper plates aren't always dumb!
 
Jul 1, 2010
962
Catalina 350 Lake Huron
When we need to conserve water, the final rinse is done with a 1 qt pump pressurized bottle. The wash water and initial rinse comes from a bucket over the side.
 
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Rick D

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Jun 14, 2008
7,131
Hunter Legend 40.5 Shoreline Marina Long Beach CA
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Likes: Scott T-Bird
Apr 8, 2010
1,942
Ericson Yachts Olson 34 28400 Portland OR
While we do use water for washing and rinsing when we never more than 3 days away from a marina and a tap for tank refilling, for longer times under way we use an old and proven system of telling all crew to use only their own cup or bowl and their own spoon. Along with that, all and sundry are banned from leaving any dirty dish in the sink. Everyone is usually quite thrifty with water to clean up their personal utensils..... and thus keep the galley region clean.
As 'thinwater' points out about managing dishes, we all have completely different habits at home where the counters are wide and things placed there do not, absent the odd earthquake, roll off onto the floor... :)
 

Tedd

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Jul 25, 2013
745
TES 246 Versus near Vancouver, BC
When we need to conserve water, the final rinse is done with a 1 qt pump pressurized bottle. The wash water and initial rinse comes from a bucket over the side.
We wash with water we bring in with a bucket, then rinse with fresh water. If you rinse with bucket water then you're leaving whatever critters were living in the bucket water on your dishware.
 
Jan 7, 2011
4,723
Oday 322 East Chicago, IN
My kids in Colorado use a spray bottle of soap for dishes, puts enough soap/water on the dish for a quick scrub and rinse with little water to remove the soap.

you could also fill one sink with a small amount of fresh water, and rinse the dishes in that half of the sink as you wash them. If the water gets too soapy, you could change it, but I bet you wouldn’t need to.

Greg
 
Jul 5, 2011
702
Oday 28 Madison, CT
Dilute Dawn by 50%+ or even more. Shoot it into a sponge with Scotchbrite backing. Wipe all food off dishes first with paper towel. Scrub everything and place in (clean) or pot as you go. Now rinse everything at once. Works for us.........
 

RoyS

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Jun 3, 2012
1,739
Hunter 33 Steamboat Wharf, Hull, MA
Plates are not the issue. They are easy to clean. The frying pans and pots are the problem. Near Boston Harbor the sea water is not clean. Diluting dish soap in a spray bottle sounds like a good idea. Interesting thought about dishwasher rinse aid; needs research. Took all my powers of persuasion to get the Admiral to not use hot water to wash dishes. Save that for showers. We do use teflon pans and that helps. My standard poodle, Argos, would approve of Rick's suggestion. One of our problems is finding a fresh water source while cruising. You can get it in a marina but marina stays are expensive. You can get it when you stop at a fuel dock but we only do that about twice a season. A water maker is simply out of my league. There certainly was a lot of rain around this year while we were cruising. Still thinking.
 
Sep 24, 2018
2,549
O'Day 25 Chicago
The frying pans and pots are the problem
Learn to season your pots and pans just like you would skillet (essentially baking oil into it). If done properly and you cook at the proper temps, you'll find that the majority of the time a quick wipedown with a paper towel is all that's needed. Right before you put the pot or pan away, put some oil (I use canola as it has a higher smoke point than olive oil) in the pan and turn it on high until it just starts to smoke, turn it down, let it cook for a few mins, turn off the burner, spread any remaining oil around with a paper towel or hand towel. Soap can wash away the oils that you bake into the pan. I typically use ceramic pans. There are far more detailed pan seasoning instructions out there but that's what I do as maintenance. Teflon can't handle as much heat as other types of pans.

If you have food/oil baked onto the surface of the pan that you can't get off use water and baking soda with a sponge or brush. A properly cleaned pan will have less food sticking to it

However, to answer your core question, Dawn powerwash dish spray is supposed to use less water when washing by hand. I've been bombarded by their commercials for months now
 
Jan 17, 2013
439
Catalina 310 St. Simons Island, GA
On all my other boats, I did as Rich did and had a raw water pump to the sink for washing dishes. I have the hardware (somewhere!) for doing the same on the 40.5, but after 23 years, I figured we don't really need it. One thing I did is to put lever-actuated spigot nozzle shut offs on all the faucets. That itself saves a lot of water. NEOPERL 1.5 GPM Dual-Thread On/Off Water-Saving Faucet Aerator in Chrome-97126.05 - The Home Depot
Best idea yet. Going to try this, thanks Rick!
 
Jan 22, 2008
79
Gulf 29 Little Current, ON
We are in Lake Huron (freshwater). We often rinse dirty dishes/pans in the lake before washing. We stretch our water when rinsing soap off dishes by attaching to the faucet a spray nozzle cut off of a sun shower . We have a foot operated pump which makes it easy to control how much water is used (little stroke, medium stroke, full stroke). The spray nozzle is more effective and efficient at rinsing the soap off dishes than a straight shot of water out of the faucet, which is more concentrated and would require using more water. We aren't attracted to using lake water to rinse (e.g., raw water pump), though I have no idea about any risks of doing so.
 
Jul 1, 2010
962
Catalina 350 Lake Huron
We wash with water we bring in with a bucket, then rinse with fresh water. If you rinse with bucket water then you're leaving whatever critters were living in the bucket water on your dishware.
The final rinse with the bottle is tank water.
 

DArcy

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Feb 11, 2017
1,690
Islander Freeport 36 Ottawa
I like to use the foot pump for washing dishes, much easier to control how much water is used.
When my youngest was a baby we were staying somewhere with questionable well water so the admiral insisted we use water jugs for washing the baby's dishes. I got very good at being frugal with rinse water and was amazed how little you really need.
I read an article long ago about someone that built separators in their dish storage so the plates didn't stack directly on each other. This way they didn't need to rinse the bottoms of the plates, saving water. That seems a bit extreme but might be worth trying for pots and pans.
 

dLj

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Mar 23, 2017
3,370
Belliure 41 Sailing back to the Chesapeake
A water maker is simply out of my league. There certainly was a lot of rain around this year while we were cruising. Still thinking.
Not sure why you say this. Because of cost?

There are some water maker options that are quite affordable. Of course you do need to be willing to build it. Otherwise, I quite agree, very over the top in price.

dj