Dishwasher Chopsticks Hack

I decided I was throwing away entirely too many wooden take-out chopsticks, so I made the switch to aluminum.

Aluminum chopsticks are really easy to clean... by hand.In the dishwasher, they are too narrow for the holes in the removable cutlery basket and too light to withstand the blasts of water from below. After too many washes where I'd have to collect the chopsticks from the floor of the dishwasher, I decided it was time to make a change.

Zip-ties on the top rack provide a harness of sorts for the chopsticks. The chopsticks are held in place tightly enough to prevent being knocked off the top rack. Not only that, but they slide under very easily, and I can fit up to six chopsticks in there at once. They ties are out of the way, don't interfere with other dishes, and are barely noticeable on the wire rack.

Three zip-ties. Two minutes. Chopsticks under control.

Comments

[cobalt420]

Great instructable I really like how you explain everything in full detail. 5 out of 5!

[iminthebathroom]

bane of my existence, fishing chop sticks out of the dishwasher plumbing. My fix was to take a small sheet of stainless steel mesh "holes to be slightly smaller then the diameter of the chop stick" and cut it to fit one of the dividers in the silverware holder.  Basically a small rectangle with all 4 edges bent up about 1/2 inch.  Make it so it fits snugly in the bottom of one of the baskets

[wilgubeast]

That's awesome!

I suspected I was not the only person struggling to wash chopsticks in a dishwasher, and I like your solution a lot. I'll be on the lookout for some mesh. As the primary dishwasher-loader in my household, I have fairly strict rules about where items are to be placed. Chopsticks fall in the handheld eating implement category, which means that they ought to be in the basket with the forks and spoons.

Slightly obsessive? Yes, but it's nice to make emptying the dishwasher that much faster by taking the basket out and placing all utensils into the same drawer all at once. After grouping utensils by size and type within each compartment of the basket, it cuts about fifteen seconds off of every dish-unloading.

[iminthebathroom]

indeed, the trick was finding the right mesh. window mesh doesn't cut it and is 2 fine anyway, traps to much food particles. I had a piece of kitchen strainer, the old wire mesh type. This was a special one though as the weave was bigger the normal, it was used for filtering out grape skins for wine making. It had to be fine, but not too fine. I know sketchy sounding description. If you were to look at a normal wire mesh kitchen strainer, take out every second wire both laterally and horizontally

[sunshiine]

Kewl! Great idea! Thanks for sharing and have a wonderful weekend!
Sunshiine