There’s actually a 3rd type that I discovered while house sitting: people who load their knives pointy side up. Absolutely insanity.
I don't understand what's wrong with this.
The handle is typically loaded so that it weighs a lot more than the blade, which means they're likely fall out of the basket if they're blade down.
Also: blade down, you can't tell which ones are the knives unless you only do knives blade down (but forks and spoons handle down), which seems even more insanity to me..!!
It's easy to cut yourself emptying the dishwasher if knives are point up, but since you're in the kitchen which can have slippery floors and there's usually an open door low to the ground and a lot of moving back and forth there's also a small risk of slipping/tripping and falling onto the knives final destination style and impaling yourself on them. Ideally pointy things point down and spoons go up.
Dishwasher utensil baskets have compartments tall and narrow enough that the knife is not going to fall out. I haven't had that happen ever in my life. Even with heavy handles. (If it's as large as a chef's knife, however, that lies down flat in the upper rack.)
And yes, you do only knives down. If you did spoons and forks down it would be too crowded at the bottom. I don't know why only knives down seems like insanity to you?
I mean, I'm glad you've never sliced your hand on a thin paring knife sticking up at an angle that makes the blade virtually invisible. But hey, it's your hand you're risking, not mine...
It seems like the comment you're replying to is likely referring to butter knives. But if your paring knives match your other flatware it seems like a pretty reasonable confusion.
This is a mistake you only make once. Lesson learned when I put a boning knife through my arm in the dish rack one day. Cost me a trip in the ambulance. Absolute insanity– correct! I don't even know how it got in there with the rest of the utensils. But I triple check the sink area every time now.
Buying a dishwasher with a third rack right at the top for cutlery fixes that.
I have a dishwasher that does this. It was in the house already, I used it for at least a month wondering why it didn't have a proper place to put cutlery before I tried cleaning the top and realized there was a drawer hidden there!
It's a great feature, but since the dishwasher has a standard height to fit under the counter, it means the bottom rack is a bit shorter than standard and I have to be very careful stacking plates to avoid blocking the washer arm. And there are a few large plates which I'm sure would fit in most washers which I have to wash by hand, like a caveman.
On balance it's a good feature though.
Some dishwashers have an option to change the height of bottom rack by moving upper rack up or down. You should check that, maybe it's you dishwasher too.
This is the absolute best feature any dishwasher can have. I can’t go back to having one of those awkward cutlery baskets now. Besides doing a terrible job with the cutlery, it just wastes so much space that could be used for plates and cups.
I do this, but I'm also against pointy knives. There is no reason for a knife to be pointy unless you are a professional knife thrower.
Any recommendations on decent quality non pointy knifes? Gracias.
Check out these Mac Knives, excellent Japanese cutlery with rounded tips:
https://www.macknife.com/collections/original-series
And the Victorinox "Swiss Classic Picnic Knife", very sharp, good for slicing fruit, spreading hummus, cutting bread & cheese, etc. Also available serrated but I figured the straight edge would be more useful overall for spreading stuff on bread -- and it is, this lives in my lunch bag along side a Snow Peak Titanium Spork:
https://www.victorinox.com/en-US/Products/Cutlery/Paring-Kni...
(shown here in Red and Black, but if you look around it's available in many other colors). I've found the Victorinox Fibrox line of knives to be a great affordable, high-quality option.
I've had so many fights about this. "They wash better, just be careful!" Absolute insanity is right.
Why are pointy knives going in the dishwasher, though?
Some of us aren’t Kobe beef chefs and like to actually clean our utensils and dishes…
If you have any knives with wooden handles and you want them to last, probably shouldn't be putting them in the dishwasher.
> like to actually clean our utensils and dishes…
If only there was some other way to clean things...
I haven't owned any kitchen knives with wooden handles for years. Probably part of the gradual replacement of plastic for wood that's happening just about everywhere.
Which other ways are there without burning a layer off your skin and that clean as well as a dishwasher machine?