How To Wash Cornhole Bags

Wouldn't it be nice if Cornhole bags, like clothes, came with a little tag that included washing instructions? Unfortunately, when it comes to washing Cornhole bags, there are many more questions than answers. In this post, we'll give you some advice for the age-old question, "How should I wash my Cornhole bags?"

Let's get one important thing out of the way right off the top. If your Cornhole bags are filled with actual corn, you shouldn't use these methods. If you're not sure whether or not your bags are corn-filled, there's a pretty good giveaway. Do your bags produce a fine white powder when you use them? If so, odds are, they're corn-filled. Unfortunately, corn doesn't respond well to water, so there's not much you can do when it comes to washing corn-filled Cornhole bags. That's why we always recommend spending the extra money to buy resin-filled bags. If you came here to find out how to wash your corn-filled Cornhole bags, we're sorry to give you this bad news. If your corn-filled bags are really dirty, you can get our best value resin-filled bags here.

Now for your resin-filled Cornhole bags, you have a few options. We will present these methods starting with our favorite and working our way down to our least favorite.

Method #1: Bucket, Hose, Mild Laundry Detergent
Our favorite way of washing Cornhole bags is old school. Grab a bucket, get your hose, preferably with an attachment to make a more powerful spray, and get a mild, liquid laundry detergent. We prefer detergents that don't have any fabric softener built-in. Put a little bit of detergent in the bucket. Pour it in until the detergent is about the size of a silver dollar. Then spray the detergent with your hose, but don't put too much water in to start. Just enough to cover two bags stacked on each other. Then, one bag at a time, put the bag in the water and dip it in and out a few times. Then, just kind of massage the bag with your hands. Work some of the suds in around the bag, particularly on dirty parts of the bag. It won't take long, maybe a minute or so per bag. When you've done four bags, put them all in the bucket and do a fairly high-pressure spray in the bucket. The idea is to spray the water on the bags and dilute the soap. When the bucket is full of water, pour all of the water out, leaving the bags in the bucket. Now spray the bags off until the bucket is full of water again. Pour it out. You want to continue rinsing in this manner until you do not see any suds in the bucket. We'll cover drying at the end of the post because we recommend the same drying method regardless of how you wash them.

Method #2: Sink, Mild Laundry Detergent
This method is pretty much the same as the method above. You just use your kitchen sink instead of a bucket. The difference is that most people can get a more powerful spray from their garden hose than from their kitchen sink. Again, we'll share our drying method later in the post.

Method #3: Clothes Washer
We're not huge fans of this method, we really recommend methods #1 & #2 over this, but some people wash their bags in their clothes washer. If you want to try this method, make sure you use cold or lukewarm water. We also recommend using a short cycle. The bottom line is that washing your Cornhole bags in your clothes washer will toss your bags around, and it will lessen the life of the bags. But, some people are okay with this. Some find it helps break their Cornhole bags in faster. If your bags have any snags, we advise against this method altogether. The bags can break open in the washer, and then you'll have a lot of resin to get out of your washer. We'll cover drying at the end of the post, but suffice it to say; we don't recommend moving your Cornhole bags from the washer to the clothes dryer.

Method #4: Dishwasher
Like the method above, we don't necessarily recommend this. We really prefer methods #1 & #2. That said, some report success washing their Cornhole bags in their dishwasher. They lay the bags out on the top shelf of the washer and run it using warm water, not hot. We can't stress that enough. Some dishwashers use extremely hot water. If you can't adjust the water temperature, you might not want to try this or try it with an old set of bags to test it. You can use whatever soap/detergent you use when running your dishwasher, although we recommend powder detergent instead of a liquid detergent. Please also note that you shouldn't put anything in the dishwasher with your bags. You don't want to wash pots/dishes and Cornhole bags simultaneously. One last word of warning; some dishwashers use a lot of heat to dry the dishes. If yours does this, you might want to consider pulling the bags out right after the wash cycle so the extreme heat doesn't damage your bags.

How To Dry Your Cornhole Bags
Regardless of which method you use to wash your Cornhole bags, we recommend the same drying method. Start by using a towel to get the worst of the moisture off the bags. If it's warm outside, we suggest letting your bags air-dry, but avoid putting them in direct sunlight, which can cause fading. If it's not warm outside, you can let them air-dry in your house. If you want/need to speed up the process, we suggest you lay the Cornhole bags out on a dry towel and use a hair blower on its low heat setting. Keep alternating between bags, so no one bag gets too hot.

Thanks for checking out our post and website. Hopefully, this information will help you get the most out of your Cornhole bags.