Thoughts on DIY dishwasher tablets

I love a bit of DIY for eco products in the home. I have previously made my own deodorants, washing concoctions, laundry detergents and more. If you have time, making your own products is a fantastic way to reduce waste, reduce chemicals including heavy fragrance if that's a priority, reduce cost and often have fun too.

I recently had a go at making dishwasher tablets, using a recipe I created using various different ones found online combining ingredients I already had. I'm not going to share a recipe, either my own concoction or ones I used, as reason will become clear.

I found the process trickier than expected, I had a lot of foam from the reaction between the chemical cleaning agents. I had to constantly stir, I couldn't put into the ice cube trays for far longer than the recipe suggested as I had bubbles for nearly an hour..! Once I had no bubbles the ingredients set hard really fast and then I had the opposite problem of not being able to get much of the ingredients into the trays. I wasn't too worried, I will have dishwasher powder instead then!

Check the size of your dishwasher tablet drawer and your ice cube trays. Not really a big deal but a bit of a faff if you're time poor, trying to crush your tab into the drawer.

I didn't find the tablets worked terribly well to start with but with progressive use, things got worse. I was finding myself putting the machine on hotter and often double cycling, not good for energy usage but also frustrating. Glasses had stuck on crumbs in, bowls and plates weren't getting washed and these were items with pretty low levels of dirtiness, the DIY tabs wouldn't stand a chance with anything really grubby.

One of the recipes had a disclaimer that DIY dishwasher tablets can be detrimental to your machine. I don't know too much about this, but I am assuming commercial detergents have harsher chemicals that clean and de-limescale the dishwasher (as well as your plates). You may feel this is a good thing, or bad thing depending on your personal trade off between lifecycle of your dishwasher and chemicals. I do not know enough about this and it's part of the ongoing research and development I will tinker with.

This is my first attempt at DIY dishwasher tablets. Although it didn't go to plan, the process was great fun, essentially having a miniature science experiment in my kitchen and I got a cool product at the end of it. I will probably have another go with a different recipe at another time.

If you are time poor, DIY dishwasher tablets probably isn't most efficient use of time/ resources. There are some great eco alternatives that are not overly expensive, are available in supermarkets, wash very well meaning you don't have to think too much and can carry on with your day, without having to make, rewash, perfect your recipe. There are some easier DIYs to try, like toilet cleaning fizzers, deodorant, if you're wanting to have a go. I will check back in if I perfect a DIY recipe, but in the meantime I'll be using up what I have made and researching it further.