The Best Third-Rack Dishwashers of 2021

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Until very recently, a third rack was a premium feature only available on high-end dishwashers. But now, the rack is finding a place in more affordable dishwashers. GE Appliances has introduced a third rack for dishwashers with plastic interiors, and the Bosch 100 series models that replaced the company’s old Ascenta line all rock the rack. Currently, our favorite third-rack dishwasher is the Bosch 800 Series SHPM88Z75N (available at AppliancesConnection for $1,399.00).

Not familiar with the third rack? It’s a sliding tray that makes better use of the limited real estate inside your dishwasher. You might want the third rack because it accommodates “where do I put this?” items, like long-serving utensils or small shallow bowls. Plus, it provides an alternative to the bulky silverware basket that can take up a ton of space on the bottom rack.

After years of testing dishwashers, we’ve discovered that those with a third rack, at a variety of price points, can vastly improve the dishwashing experience.

Here are the best third-rack dishwashers we tested, ranked in order:

1. Bosch 800 Series SHPM88Z75N (2019)
2. Bosch 800 Series SHPM88Z75N
3. Samsung DW80R9950UT
4. Bosch 500 Series SHPM65Z55N (2019)
5. Bosch 300 Series SHSM63W55N (2017)
6. KitchenAid KDTM404KPS
7. Vinotemp Brama BR-DWSH01-S

How We Tested Third-Rack Dishwashers

The Testers

Hi there! We're Reviewed's appliance testing team. Between the three of us (Jon Chan, Kyle Hamilton, and Julia MacDougall), we've spent many years testing major appliances including washers, dryers, refrigerators, dishwashers, vacuum cleaners, and robot vacuum cleaners.

We have plenty of experience testing these products in the lab, but we've also used them like normal people would in the course of their daily lives, which means that we have a great sense for what appliances are bargains at their price points, and which appliances have really useful extra features (as opposed to the kitchen-sink approach to features).

With all this in mind, you can feel confident that when we recommend a product, we're giving it our Reviewed stamp of approval, which means two things: firstly, this appliance performs well, and secondly, this appliance is easy to use. We're always reviewing new products, so stay tuned for our reviews and roundups of the latest products in laundry, refrigerators, dishwashers, and vacuum cleaners.

The Tests

Testing dishwashers is a dirty job, and we're happy to do it. We assess each dishwasher on the three major parts of the dishwasher experience— Performance, Features, and Usability.

• Stain Removal —We put the three major cycles on a dishwasher (Quick Cycle, Heavy Cycle, and Normal Cycle) to the test by baking food and beverage stains onto 15-20 dishes that are then loaded into the dishwasher per the manufacturer's loading directions. The stains include milk, spinach, egg, oatmeal, meat, and more. At the end of each cycle, we determine how much stain has been removed from each dish. Ideally, each dish is 100 percent clean, but that level of cleaning perfection can be harder to achieve in real life.

• Redeposit —Redeposit is the term for when, during the course of a dishwasher cycle, water jets remove bits of food from one dish, only to accidentally get it stuck on a second dish. Any dishwasher that shows little to no evidence of redeposit is a winner in our book.

• Number of Dirty Dishes —After a dishwasher cycle has finished, we count the number of dishes that are not 100 percent clean; if your dishwasher can't clean most of your dishes the first time, it's not doing its job correctly.

• Cycle Time —Dishwasher cycles can run the gamut from 30 minutes to four hours. Shorter cycle times are much more convenient, especially when it comes to large dinner parties, where you may need to reuse dishes from dinner when it's time for dessert.

• Drying —Whether it's accomplished with rinse aid, a built-in heater, or a built-in fan, customers expect their dishes to be dry as well as clean. We penalize the dishwasher every time a dish comes out wet, whether it's sopping wet or just covered in a few water droplets.

While all of the features in the world can't make a bad dishwasher better, they can really add the finishing touch to a dishwasher that does a killer cleaning job. We look at the various cycles, cycle options, and dishwasher specs and assess both a) how useful the features are, and b) how easy it is to actually use those features.

For example, a third rack that primarily holds cutlery can often be a game-changer when it comes to freeing up valuable real estate in the bottom rack. However, if the third rack is rickety, doesn't slide smoothly, or prevents the dishwasher from actually cleaning the cutlery, we would penalize the dishwasher, rather than reward it just for having a third rack. The whole point of a dishwasher is to save you from having to spend time scrubbing every dirty dish by hand; if a particular feature isn't going to make the process of using a dishwasher better or easier, then we don't want it.

The best dishwashers have short cycles, superior stain removal and drying power, and features that make the experience of using a dishwasher a painless one.

Why Buy a Third-Rack Dishwasher?

The third rack—a smaller, shallower rack that sits above the top rack and is primarily meant to hold cutlery—is a relatively new feature that some manufacturers are adding to their dishwashers. So what's so appealing about another rack in your dishwasher? Having a third rack is beneficial to your dishwasher experience in two ways: convenience and versatility.

Convenience

Because most dishwashers still come with cutlery baskets, you might be wondering why your dishwasher needs a second place to store cutlery. The major way a third rack can make your life easier is that the third rack typically resides at waist height, meaning that you can get your cutlery in and out of the dishwasher without bending over. While that may seem minor, if you're doing one to two loads of dishes a day, having a cutlery receptacle at waist height will be doing your back a huge favor.

Also, if you ever need room in the bottom rack for large or unusually-shaped dishes, you can just move the contents of your cutlery basket into the third rack with no muss and no fuss.

Additionally, some third racks come with small tines that allow you to place each piece of silverware in a specific place; because each fork, knife, and spoon are physically separated from one another, this makes it more likely that each piece of cutlery will get blasted with water, as opposed to being blocked by large items in the bottom rack or other silverware in the cutlery basket.

Versatility

While third racks are mostly meant to accommodate silverware, some third racks have deeper sections that can fit items that are taller than a fork, but too small to be thrown into the larger top and bottom racks. The third rack is a great place for items that don't have an obvious place in the dishwasher, such as water bottle tops, chopsticks, ramekins, baby bottle tops, pacifiers, ladles, and more.

Because some of these objects might be harder to clean than cutlery, be sure to look inside at either the top of the dishwasher or beneath the third rack to see if there's an additional spray arm that focuses directly on the items in the third rack. Without an additional spray arm, it can be difficult for normal spray arms at the bottom of the dishwasher to get the dishes in the third rack completely clean.

Overall

If you're constantly running the dishwasher, a third rack can definitely make a difference in your dishwasher experience. Because a third rack is still something of a luxury feature, expect to pay more for dishwashers that include a third rack. However, third racks are making their way down-market, and are starting to be included in more affordable dishwashers. If you want the convenience of a third rack, but don't want to buy a new dishwasher, some manufacturers, like GE, are offering a third rack kit that allows you to retroactively install a third rack into any relatively new GE dishwasher. In the near future, we anticipate that anyone will be able to buy a dishwasher with a third rack at any price point.

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Other Third-Rack Dishwashers We Tested

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