Dishwasher against aluminum pan: why is it better to wash such dishes by hand?

Every day, the dishwasher is becoming an increasingly common part of modern kitchens. And this is no coincidence: it can significantly save time and effort, which will be useful in a series of other endless household chores. But this is bad luck: some inexperienced housewives, having washed the aluminum dishes in the dishwasher, are horrified to notice that they have ruined their favorite pot or new meat grinder - it turned black. What to do now? Why did this happen? Is it possible to put aluminum products in the dishwasher?

What happens in the dishwasher?

So, having been in the dishwasher, aluminum products darkened. Why did this happen? The fact is that the machine washing process is associated with two nuances that have a detrimental effect on the properties of aluminum. This is a combination of hot water with alkali, which is part of the detergent.

Alkali is used in order to dissolve and then wash the dirt without mechanical impact (after all, the dishes, unlike clothes, can not be twisted in a machine). But this substance is a real enemy of aluminum. Alkali dissolves the protective oxide layer on the surface of such dishes, after which the metal freely reacts with hot water, oxidizes and darkens.

It is important to remember that the appearance of the dishes is not at all the main trouble. When aluminum darkens, it loses a protective barrier that prevents the potentially hazardous metal from entering the food during cooking.

If you wash aluminum dishes in the dishwasher constantly, in the end the soft metal will begin to break down, so cooking in it will become really unsafe, even if the temperature is not very high and everything went fine the first time.

When is the dishwasher not contraindicated?

It turns out that such situations exist, and the hostesses need to know about them.

• Non-stick aluminum products, unless otherwise indicated on the packaging, may well be loaded into the machine.
• If the dishes have a different protective coating and the instruction also does not prohibit such washing, it is permissible to use a dishwasher.
• You can also use a dishwasher for aluminum utensils if you create the conditions under which the destruction of the protective layer does not occur: start the cycle at low temperature and use a detergent that does not contain aggressive alkali. Such products today can be found among a huge variety of detergent powders, tablets or gels.

Even if the marking does not prohibit machine washing, choose the most delicate mode with a low temperature for this.

How to fix the situation?

If an incident has already occurred, this does not always mean that the dishes will have to be thrown away. First you need to soberly assess the "scale of the disaster." In many cases, affected dishes can be helped by preparing them for future use and returning the original shine.

If the wash took place at a not very high temperature and with a small amount of detergent, the damage is likely to be replenished. And vice versa: the higher the temperature and more detergent, the more difficult it will be to rectify the situation (and sometimes this is completely impossible).

So, for starters, you can try a gentle method: wash the affected item first with a strong vinegar solution, and then with a soda solution. If this does not help, you will have to resort to using special household chemicals.

Do not follow the “good old and proven” grandmother’s recipe, which prescribes boiling aluminum pots or pans with washing powder and soda for clarification. So you only completely destroy everything.

How can darkened aluminum be treated? There are several tools that make sense to try:

• GOI. This paste should be applied to a piece of felt and polished aluminum surface.
• Dialux This is also a polishing paste, able to cope with the blackening of soft metal.
• HORS. This is an automotive rust control tool that can be called "heavy artillery." That is, it is worth resorting to his help when the previous methods did not give a result. You should first process the damaged product with HORS, and then polish any of the above pastes.

How to wash aluminum dishes?

So, if there is a sign prohibiting washing in the car on a saucepan, pan or pan, you have to do it manually. This is actually not so difficult. The main thing is to avoid abrasives, metal brushes or washcloths, high temperatures and alkaline detergents. That is, it should be washed with warm water, using only a soft sponge and a liquid non-alkaline detergent (in extreme cases, ordinary kitchen soap).

The main problem with the darkening of aluminum utensils is the destruction of the protective oxide layer, due to which aluminum and its impurities can get into food. Therefore, wash products made of this metal should be very careful. If there is even the slightest doubt about whether a particular pan or cauldron will withstand a machine "execution", it is better to wash them by hand.