Do as I say, not as I do. Maybe....

Another one of my great Pinterest idea attempts gone awry.  Dishwasher detergent like this, yeah, I tried it. It turned rock hard and I had to chisel it out of the container.  Then I started noticing that the glasses were really cloudy.  Maybe this stuff wasn't as great as the Pinterest idea said it was.  We do have pretty hard water after all, but we did have a broken part on the dishwasher that was causing some draining problems. 

I gave up on the dishwasher with it's mechanical problems and I just quit using it all together.  With just Jody and I, we really didn't have that many dirty dishes and I'm one of those wash as you go kind of cooks.  Then we started having take out a couple of times a week and I didn't have to do dishes at all so life is grand.  Mike changed out a faulty part and the DW started working again but we were still having problems with the cleaning ability.  Jody decided it was a crappy DW and promised me a new one for Mother's Day remember that?

I sort of gave up on the dishwasher detergent and deleted any pictures that I had planned to post to show you how I made it.  

Now that I'm home for the summer I've been on a cleaning spree.  I've also been going back to some of my Pinterest ideas and deleted the ones that I didn't have interest in any longer.  While doing this I ended up back on Jillee's blog and found this, she had a revision and I thought I'd give it a try.  I still had the rock hard detergent after all.

In her post she said to add a couple of drops of Dawn to the detergent.  Seems when the detergent makers started removing phosphates our dishes started having residue again.  So last night I tried the dishwasher again and it's working again so far so good and Jillee's suggestions worked.

This morning I set out to make that rock hard detergent right.  I had to do some chiseling, and then some sifting.   I took the whole process outside, kind of dusty.

Lots of clumps and rocks in here.

 Kind of a pain really.

Sifting out the clumps

In the revision of Jillee's recipe she says to add vinegar and make a paste then load it into ice-cube trays to dry.  OK,  I remember science classes... I'm a do-it-yourself homemaker, I've put baking soda and vinegar down the drain.  I know what happens when you mix these two components.   No, I didn't stop, I just kept on, sure that Jillie wouldn't steer me wrong.

All sifted now for the liquid part

So I added the vinegar....  oh, it's a lovely shade of pale yellow and smells so lemony that's the lemon Kool-Aid.  And it's bubbling!  No, I'm not wearing gloves, that would be such a smart thing to do seeing how this concoction contains Borax, and Borax is caustic and known to burn skin.  

Such a pretty shade of yellow.

It was really bubbling.   I started filling the ice-cube trays but it just kept bubbling. 

Oh, it's growing!

Ok, so I tried covering them with plastic wrap.  Ha!  It looks like bread rising.  I did grab my gloves at this point but only to put one glove on, I can't take pictures wearing gloves and I like to live dangerously.  This is when I was wishing that a squirrel or mocking bird was filming me.  We'd be rich!

And continues to grow!

This wasn't going to work so I dumped the ice-trays back into the bucket.  Maybe I'd just bag it.  HA!  I had to burp that bag 3 times, that wasn't going to work either.   Fine, I'll just put it in a jar and put it under the sink.

What happens when the 'Blob' escapes this jar?

Nice and neat.  I put the ice-trays in the dish washer and started it.  There was enough of the left over ever growing detergent on the trays to clean a load of dishes.

I also had so many items covered in the bubbling goo that when I put them all in the sink and added water that I ended up with enough soapy water to clean the whole kitchen, counter tops, cabinet doors and then I mopped the kitchen, entry and bathrooms.

This crazy experiment wasn't a total loss after all.  HA!

Then tonight when I was loading the dishwasher after dinner this is what I found under the sink. 

Interesting!

IT'S ALIVE!!!!!   And it's gooey and gummy!

I'm trying to remember what all I put in that detergent that could have been different from Jillee's.   Should I email her to see if anyone else has had this problem? Should we be wearing haz-mat suits?

The lesson here, I say make your own dishwasher detergent if you are so inclined and find a good recipe, but don't do it like this.