Air drying dishes - permanently wet drainer

[WhereToPutTheLaundry]

I air dry my dishes each night - I have a dishwasher and everything that can go in does but some things (baking trays, air fryer drawer, wooden board and utensils, coffee maker etc cant and have to be hand washed.

I have (inherited) wooden worktop with drainer grooves, and since it's almost always wet it it also black and disgusting.

I fully realise this is my own fault because I don't dry up the dishes and dry the drainer nightly.

I am the only adult in the house and the only washer upper (single parents, disabled kids), and I want to cut down my workload to maximise what little downtime I get.

Planning a new kitchen without wood around sink, but it will still be wet all the time - there's no time during the day that there isn't something in the drainer.

Am I missing something? How do others who air dry manage?

Can you get one of those absorbent dishdrying mats and put that over the wood?

Ours isn’t wet all the time. Quartz with grooves. We use a draining rack on top. Occasionally I need to wipe a puddle up if I’ve put a pan on the drainer without tipping the water out properly first.

So either you need to give everything a quick shake before it goes on the drainer, or get better grooves on the new worksurface.

Or stand the whole thing on a tray? But then that needs washing up too. You can get drainers with built-in trays.

Grooves are useless in a wooden worktop, looks great, but functionally crap. I've got a ceramic draining board a bit like this, it just sits on the worktop, overhanging a bit so the water drips into the sink.

https://www.tapwarehouse.com/p/reginox-belfast-butler-ceramic-drainer?gad_source=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIqaubw-D7gwMVD5dQBh2KcQ4rEAQYASABEgIHZvD_BwE

One of these under the drying rack does the job - I've got two and lob one in the machine whenever doing a wash and out the clean one out.

www.dunelm.com/product/antibacterial-drying-mat-1000185524

We have one them at work because the muppets that built the kitchen did not put a draining board it at all.

It's not very big but it does the job https://www.amazon.co.uk/Kitsure-Space-Saving-Kitchen-Counter-Stainless/dp/B0B4K1XH8Y/ref=asc_df_B0B4K1XH8Y/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=658866347882&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=10310094841209078851&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9046634&hvtargid=pla-1932520690791&psc=1&mcid=6a78c624a52f38c7a142895e8eee8e14

Do you have a drying rack as well, or just sitting wet things on the wood?
For roasting pans I often stick them in the oven upside down. The residual heat from the oven dries them. Doesn’t work if you don’t wash up straight after dinner mind.
I also have an ikea long trivet that I stick a tea towel on that sits on the work top. Things that hold a lot of water, such as plastics or the odd jug, I stick on there to dry.

I have a glass worktop saver covered by a towelling tea towel under my drainer. Keeps the wooden worktop dry.

Ooh, great - there are solutions! I tried a worktop saver thingy when I first came but it ended up wet underneath and for me made things worse rather than better but a mat under the dish rack (I have one, not just stuff direct in sides) that gets changed and washed sounds easy and doable.

I will certainly not get wood around the sink again, but it's good to know it's rubbish generally and the draining grooves don't work, maybe it's not just me 🫣

I actually love my wooden worktops, but they are pointless for draining.

Yes, this.

I love my wooden worktops but unless you treat your worktops like you would a yacht's wood it won't like being permanently wet. I just have a drainer that is integral to my sink so the wood doesn't get wet.

We have a mat.
BUT, the game changer is to put everything away after breakfast and leave the whole thing empty til after dinner.
So, dishwasher set off in a evening, and rest washed up by hand.
Breakfast - empty dishwasher and draining rack. Fill dishwasher with breakfast stuf. Put mat on drying rack to air.

Put a drainer in the actual sink and air dry stuff in there. I don't have a draining board next to my sink at all because I don't like the look of stuff on the side

And baking trays go in the warm oven soon as they are washed so the heat of the oven dries them

I've just got a cheap standard stainless steel drainer as part of the sink with a dish rack sitting on top of it.

Every morning I put away the dry dishes (no dishwasher) and then clean and wipe down the drainer. It's certainly not always wet.

Do you wipe down your wooden draining board every day?

I admit that I don't wipe the draining board daily. I take full responsibility for the state of it due to my not tip top housekeeping but sadly I just don't have the spoons for upkeep of a wooden drainer along with all the other demands on my time (it's pretty much 24/7)

Roll on the new kitchen.

I think your best bet is a cloth mat that you can just chuck in the wash then, or several so you don't need to wash it every day.

If it's not wiped down then it's going to go mouldy but a thickish toweling mat, even just a dish towel should be enough to catch drips as long as you change it regularly.

I used something like this when we had wood work surfaces. It doesn’t look great, but then neither do mouldy work surfaces.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/275542357354?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=tC8beQp3R02&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=&var=578618295130&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

Thanks! I don't know why I never thought of it before. I do periodically deep clean it but since it always gets bad again it feels quite soul destroying. I might be inspired to scrub it tomorrow and then start with the mats regime. Hurrah!

We have a mat under the drainer works well and I have an emergency spare one. Only a couple of quid from aldi but I've seen elsewhere

We have wooden grooves. With a rack above. The wood still rots. So then we used a tray with a draining lip into the sink with a rack.

If you hot rinse, it dries quickly. The tray needs washing when it needs to as it can be a bit rank.

I don't much like the look. I prefer the idea above of having twin sinks with a drainer/rack in one. That would make rinsing easy.

Or plate racks floating above the drainer, where you keep the stuff to bypass having to put stuff away.

Wood around the sink seems to never quite work. I find the tap area just a pain in the arse to mop, and it just blackens and goes mouldy.

After trying a huge stainless draining board, pooling just happens. You need to lift the items to get them dry.

Choose a draining rack wisely! You don't want one where plates fall over, or it can't take big plates etc. Might be worth starting another thread asking what works best for that.

I like my draining rack arrangement - it's just the blinking wood below that I hate! I agree that choice of draining rack is v important and I took a long time to research and locate suitable replacements when my last one gave up the ghost

I know what you mean about not having the spoons, but if you can enforce the nightly reset, you might then have less of those horrible deep cleaning tasks to do that then wipe you out. Saying this from experience 😩 I really forced myself to be better at doing things straight away after Christmas, and things are much more orderly now and I feel like I get proper time to myself because I’m not letting things mount up. I was stuck for ages in cycles of piling up - deep cleaning.

Anyway! Do the washing up straight after dinner. tea towel under the things you’re drying to absorb the drips, before bed turn everything up and off the cloth and set to one side so it airs out fully. Put the wet cloth over the oven door handle or I also put mine dangling by the draughty window and it’s ready for the next day bone dry.

Words of wisdom right there 😇

Joseph Joseph dish drainer with a tray that empties into the sink. Game changer.

https://www.josephjoseph.com/collections/dish-racks-drainers?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI4N2z9v7gwMV4JNQBh3QoAUUEAAYASAAEgIZxfDD_BwE