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How I wash dishes using very little water

The best part about this method is that you can measure how much water you’re using so you can compare it to other methods so if I’m wrong you’ll find out easily.

I use a bowl, often I just pick whatever bowl or pot I’m cleaning that’s the biggest unless it’s a super sensitive “never scratch it” thing. Sometimes just a li’l glass or jar is fine. Just to have something to get a nice mix of water and detergent.

In my old place I had the world’s smallest sink so I used a wooden cutting board over the sink and placed the bowl on top of the board. In my new place the work surface is instead what’s small while the sink is big so I place the bowl in the sink itself.

I put dish soap and some hot water in the bowl.

Using that to clean stuff, putting the cleaned-but-unrinsed stuff in the sink. In my old place I’d have a gap beside the wooden board so I could put things down there. In my new place I just place ‘em down there beside the bowl.

When I have too much stuff to rinse, I take a break from washing stuff and rinse off things under running water. I rinse into the bowl itself so I see how much water I’m using while rinsing.

For utensils I hold a couple of them in my hand at once so I can rinse several at one time. I sometimes toweldry stuff right after rinsing them, other times I just place ‘em to air dry after rinsing them. Which leaves water streaks but if it’s pandemic times and no-one else is gonna come visit here ever, it’s fine.

Protein, which wheat dough residue is, is easiest to clean with cold water. Fat and sugar is easier with hot water.

If something doesn’t get clean easily right away, I put it aside while I do other stuff, occasionally returning to the difficult thing. Having patience while the detergent works its physics in between attempts often saves me from having to scrub desperately.

I use a brush for most things. For sieves I use a soft rag. I don’t like using a sponge for doing the dishes.

As I mentioned, if I don’t have a big bowl I sometimes use just a li’l jar or glass or empty container, just to get a nice mix of detergent and water in. Those times I lose out on the ability to see how much water I’m using and on the ability to dip things into the bowl which is sometimes a good and timesaving way to get detergent onto them. But I’m OK with that.

If I don’t even have any small things to use, like let’s say I’ve got lots of cutlery but no glasses or cups, I just bring out a big clean bowl just for the purps of washing the dishes.

If I’m doing very many dishes at the same time, sometimes things get too grody and then I just start over with one or all these elements.