Cleaning Your Dishwasher

For the first year and a half of my homemaking career I had no dishwasher, it was therapeutic to hand wash my dishes, but I was also ready to have a dishwasher.  Now that I've moved, I finally have a dishwasher!  Yay!  Dishwashers are a wonderful appliance that I think gets taken advantage of, it has saved me so much time.  Of course mine is used though, so it was in need of a cleaning.  Most people aren't aware their dishwashers have a filter, even two filters.  If your dishwasher is ten years or older, it probably has a self cleaning filter, equipped with a grinder to get out the nasty food bits.  Personally I would probably still take apart the bottom because I am sure there is gunk even with the grinder, but it could void a warranty if you do that and I wouldn't do it if your dishwasher works well.  As newer models surface, they have moved away from the noisy grinder style dishwasher, for the most part.  However these new models need cleaned manually and regularly.

Every dishwasher is different, so these steps may be slightly different for you, but you'll still be able to clean your dishwasher filters with the tips I've provided!  In my dishwasher there are two different kinds of filters.  A mesh filter and a central filter.  The central filter is the round one and the mesh filter is the other.  Some dishwashers have these two pieces as one.

Now to the cleaning!  If you've never cleaned your filters before, chances are they are pretty dirty.  Fill up your sink with hot water with dish soap and vinegar and let them soak.  Now to the inside of the dishwasher, the hole where the central filter was is called the sump.  Glove up your hand and feel around for any bigger bits of food, if the water is cloudy.  Mine was clear and clean so I didn't have to do that.  You could even drain the sump with a sponge to be really thorough.  After that add vinegar into the sump, this will help break down anymore gunk in the machine when you run it.  I then took my soapy sponge and scrubbed the inside of the dishwasher down, go ahead and leave the suds, they will rinse out when you run your machine.
After the filters have soaked for around ten to twenty minutes, maybe longer if you feel they need it.  I then would scrub both filters with a soapy sponge or cloth.  If your filters are pretty clean already you can just scrub them as soon as you remove them!  After they are clean, put them back in and run the machine with your choice of either vinegar, bleach, or your normal dishwashing liquid.
I also like to bleach around the seal of the dishwasher and anywhere stray food could be hiding and scrub it with a tooth brush.  I hope this helps you!  Happy Cleaning!