blog author actually discussed it. in form of explaining that hot prewash stains, 85% of cleaning done mechanically, the rest is done with detergent with temperature been supportive (according to published "scientific literature") and that who cares about how things are clean after prewash as long as dishes come out clean after main wash. in general, it's hilarious. there are literally dozens R&D departments that design dishwashers across dozens of companies. And all of them are wrong because somebody run tests on (checking notes) 30 years old dishwasher. i trashed dishwasher similar to the one that tests are run on 4 years ago. it was washing everything just fine with exception of few days when check valve broke. after i replaced it, it came back to washing perfectly with cascade platinum pods
Likes it
It depends on a lot of factors. (The main one is actually your water hardness. Around here, the water is soft straight out of the tap, so that helps me a lot.) I get the best results with Cascade Platinum paks, so I buy those. I have had inferior results with other detergents. (Kroger has a clone of the Platinum packs. I think it's pretty good as well, but I don't remember.) So I don't buy those any more, I buy the one that I know will work. It is not a surprise that the paks work well. There are several ingredients that "like" to be formulated as powders, and several ingredients that "like" to be formulated as liquids. The paks can contain both. This is not possible for pure powders or gels, so that lets paks have more different cleaners in them. (I don't know what's going on with gels. I've never personally had good luck with gels.)
Doesn’t like it
We attempted an experiment in our own dishwasher after the video, trying Cascade Platinum boxed powder (only stuff available here) and Cascade Platinum Plus pods (which we had been using before). The experiment showed that, for our dishwasher and our water, the pods just worked significantly better. The main difference was in the silverware (tiny bits would occasionally be left with the powder). A couple of months into the experiment with the powder, the dishwasher started to smell a bit foul, which usually indicates time to clean the filters, which I did. But this happened vastly sooner than I was used to with the pods. Even if the powder's performance sucks intentionally because Cascade made it worse now, as a sibling comment suggested, ultimately that's the only powder option still available here.
Likes it
That was probably their brand-neutral way of saying to use Cascade Platinum. Not to sound like a shill but that’s the only product that’s actually worked well for my current dishwasher. Everything else leaves a lot of residue or doesn’t actually clean.
Likes it
I've switched over to using Cascade Gel in the prewash and a Platinum pod in main wash after watching the video a couple months ago. I felt the powder stuff gets kinda messy amd the gel is easier. I don't need to pre rinse and scrub anymore. Silverware, dishes, and pots go straight in even with food residue dried on, so I save a bunch of time. Everything comes out perfectly spotless and squeaky clean. Older GE dishwasher on auto.