Dishwasher: white powder left on everything

[VitoCorleoneOfMNMafia]

I have a mini dishwasher like this one and use half a teaspoon of Sainsbury's powder in it. It's a miniature machine so doesn't take as big a dose as a normal machine. I've set the salt up to match my local water hardness. There isn't anywhere to put rinse aid.

Everything comes out covered in a chalky powder. The inside of the machine is covered in chalky powder that comes off with dishwasher cleaner but then comes straight back in the next couple of washes.

Does anyone have any idea what I'm doing wrong?

I reckon it's the salt. I can never remember if it's too much or too little that does this.

I hate dishwashers. Well ours anyway, everything comes out looking manky. OH refuses to have stuff hand washed/wash up

You need more salt I think.

I will try altering the salt dose next run.

My sciatica makes hand dishwashing painful.

Ours has the right salt levels in and I really cant work out why its so bad

Im quite happy to hand wash but he wont have it, its not 'clean enough'.

God

The white stuff means you need salt in your dishwasher. It also means your water is very hard - get a water softener - Harvey's do a great one....

Are the filters clean OP?

Waitrose sell a really good dishwasher gel so that'll stop you getting powder residue which could just mean the water isn't hot enough to dissolve it.

Turning the salt up seems to have resulted in no further deposits and the carefully de-white-stuffed sample cutlery came out clean. I need to de-white-stuff everything and run more loads to be sure.

I clean the filters before I use dishwasher cleaner. I possibly should use dishwasher cleaner more often.

Hard water is the Merseyside curse.

I once got a dishwasher gel from Aldi and this problem stopped, then I could never find it again. Damn Lidl and Aldi and their "blink and you've missed it" middle aisles. I will try this Waitrose gel.

I use Finish dishwasher liquid - all the powders and tablets are rubbish, I found. Then I used a Finish cleaner tablet once a month and also check the filter isn't clogged up regularly, and keep salt and rinse aid topped up. Dishwashers are great but you need to look after them for them to work properly.

If there's no rinse aid compartment you'll need to use all in one tablets.

I got sick of blunting my kitchen knives cutting the tablets into thirds.

It's having no rinse aid.

Turning the salt up seems to have resulted in no further deposits and the carefully de-white-stuffed sample cutlery came out clean. I need to de-white-stuff everything and run more loads to be sure.

That did not last to the second wash. It's now worse. The residue tastes neither salty nor soapy so I'm concluding that it's either zeolite from the powder or limescale.

My nearest Waitrose is over 12 miles away. Would John Lewis have a Waitrose "bit"?

I've never seen Finish liquid in the shops, didn't even know it existed.

I get several bottles at a time online.

I await the arrival of dishwasher gel. I really hope that the gel will fix this.

I have removed the white chalky deposit from a test load of clean-but-chalky plates by using white wine vinegar instead of powder in a hot cycle. Guess what I'll be doing this evening...