| Many posts here about sterilization seem to focus on the temperature. Yes, having a dishwasher program that thoroughly rinses at 90 °C for 10 minutes will kill most germs in there. I think this leaves out a very important aspect: how you use your dishwasher has a big impact. I claim that programs at significantly lower maximum temperatures (say 50 °C) can be safely used as long as people are careful about (a) the state of the items they put in their dishwasher and (b) how they position the items. If you put in items with lots of and/or big food scraps on them you increase the risk of some of the material being left in some sieve or getting caught in the tray. All material that's left for the final rinse will populate the water with some particles which then cover all items. Same with dried crusts that only get soaked but not removed by the program. And also the same with items that are inapropriately positioned, so that food residues aren't reached by the water jets, or so they topple over and fill with water which then also spoils the final rinse. I'd bet if you reliably prevent the above mentioned things from happening by being careful about which items you put in and how you position them, you can use a low temperature program without any risk at all. |