Can you Kasher a dishwasher?

Log in / Sign Up

List of Forums + New Post Recipe Box Usergroups Following My Posts Bookmarks

Private Messages Advanced Search Rules New User Guide FAQ Advertise Contact Us

Forum -> Household Management -> Kosher Kitchen

View latest: 24h 48h 72h

Can a dishwasher be kashered?

yes

52%

[ 18 ]

47%

[ 16 ]

Total Votes : 34

amother

Mon, Dec 17 2012, 4:31 pm

My dishwasher has sat idle for 6 months because we were convinced that a dishwasher cannot be kashered. Well the more people we meet the more we are finsing out that rabbis allow it and that they themselves kashered thiers. It seems like I am the only one washing heaps of dishes every day. We will obviously ask a rav at some point, but what are your thoughts?

can a dishwasher (racks are plastic I think) be kashered?

abby1776

Mon, Dec 17 2012, 4:33 pm

My understanding is that if the inside of your dishwasher is stainless steel it may be able to kashered, but you would need new plastic racks.

The problem is even if the inside of the dishwasher is stainless steel, there are many plastic portions (such as the soap insertion portion) that are made from plastic and cannot be kashered.

I believe Sephardi poskim are more mekil towards kashering hard plastics.

mummiedearest

Mon, Dec 17 2012, 4:34 pm

depends on what the inside of the dishwasher is lined with. if it's a stainless steel interior, you should be able to, but you will probably have to purchase new racks. other interiors are probably more problematic. and, of course, it depends on who you follow. go ask your rav. you can call while washing the dishes Smile

chocolate moose

Mon, Dec 17 2012, 4:35 pm

6 mos is a long time for it to just sit. the gaskets might be dried out and need replacing. you might as well replace the whole thing.

imasinger

Mon, Dec 17 2012, 4:47 pm

Here's our semi-sad story.

We bought stainless steel dishwashers because our rav said they could be kashered. In particular, I was excited to kasher them for pesach.

We were told to get extra racks for Pesach, though. We did. It cost a fair amount of money.

Then, we found out that all we had were the racks. No little wheels, none of the other hardware that made the racks and the dishwasher work. And our rav said that we would have to get those, as well. The cost would be more than the cost of a new dishwasher.

However, the good news for us wais that the psak was not as strict for the rest of the year. Our rav said that we can use the existing racks and just run the right kind of cycle with some soap to kasher the dishwasher from dairy to pareve. Not every rav paskens that way, but ours did.

amother

Mon, Dec 17 2012, 4:47 pm

I have heard of people saying that it should be unused for a year and then can be kashered. My mil was told it cannot be kashered. The vaad of kashrus where I live told me I can kasher without replacing anything. In other words, Aylor...there is no one else who can tell you what you can do. But now you should know that it IS a reasonable question...I just quoted three different paskim from 3 different yeshivish/charadi rabbonim.

Happy18

Mon, Dec 17 2012, 4:48 pm

I've always heard that you cannot kasher a dishwasher if there are plastic parts that cannot be replaced.

saw50st8

Mon, Dec 17 2012, 4:54 pm

AFAIK, you can kasher a dishwasher with a stainless tub even if the other internals are plastic. There is a method of doing this with baking a brick in the oven, and puting that in the dishwasher to steam. (this is from my family Rabbi, bu t we haven't kashered our dishwashers yet).

Ask your Rabbi. Or replace. You can get a nice dishwasher for around $500.

FASMA

Mon, Dec 17 2012, 5:20 pm

As others have said ask your rab.
For us it went like this, we moved to a house that was owned by frum Jews before and it has a dishwasher they used to dairy. It has not been used for 2 years and now when we moved in we wanted it for meat, our 'yeshivish' sepharadi rab allowed us to kasherize it because it has not been in use for more than a year. This is our experience so better ask!

amother

Mon, Dec 17 2012, 9:03 pm

For a few hundred bucks a dishwasher can easily be replaced.

Amital

Tue, Dec 18 2012, 12:44 am

Ask. It entirely depends on your rav, but answers vary widely.

amother

Tue, Dec 18 2012, 4:13 am

http://joshyuter.com/2011/11/2.....airy/

CPenzias

Tue, Dec 18 2012, 4:49 pm

OK I'm not reading all the replies but I have a stainless steel dishwasher with plastic racks. I was told that if I get an extra set of racks and do a pareve (or empty) load in between I can use it for both dairy and meat. This was a question that I asked Rabbi Blumenkrantz a"h. The author of the books for pesach with kashering etc.

(he was our mesader kedushin)

chatouli

Tue, Dec 18 2012, 4:56 pm

I have a stainless steel dishwasher and was told that all I needed was to get new racks, remove the old ones, and to run an empty load with soap. No brick necessary.

The racks, by the way, cost $400. It's a really nice dishwasher or I'd have just replaced it for slightly more money, but a comparable dishwasher that would fit with the rest of the appliances would have been closer to $700.

Page 1 of 1