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Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ brushes
- goldenkey 10y agoTime to throw my grill brush away. It always hurt when I accidently touched it anyhow. Steel wool is probably safer and better anyhow.
- zackbloom 10y agoMy grill cleaning method has always been to put a layer of tinfoil on the grill, shiny side down. Ten minutes or so of direct heat and the grill is clean, just like a self-cleaning oven. If there's any ash left, a quick pass with a wet paper towel takes care of it.
- wahnfrieden 10y agoI stupidly used relatively thin/cheap tinfoil when I tried this and it flaked all over my grill after having it heat up. Just a word of caution...
- nommm-nommm 10y agoYeah, Aluminium foil is definitely not something you can go generic with.
- goldenkey 10y agoI learned this the hard way. Cheap aluminum foil falls apart really easily at the kind of heats you would want to use for baking or grilling. It's worth it to even buy the Reynolds extra strength stuff. Worst part of grilling is if your tin foil gets holes in it, and now you've screwed up the moisture barrier.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- btkramer9 10y agoA while back I learned that the shiny side is no different from the duller side [0] (except for the shininess of course!) [0] http://www.chowhound.com/post/shiny-dull-aluminum-foil-debate-787799 http://www.chowhound.com/post/shiny-dull-aluminum-foil-debat.... I couldn't find a 'best' link but after looking at few the point is clear
- mapt 10y agoWhy not just close the lid?
- bifrost 10y agoWell thats sortof terrifying. Very squicky.
- SQL2219 10y agoI had insidious things and once I saw the bristles coming off I threw it out. Direct from China. Buyers beware.
- tedmiston 10y agoDo commercial restaurant grills use the same?
- jagger27 10y agoI've seen most places use steel wool instead. The fibres do still find their way into food, unfortunately. But the fibres are often much softer and far less dangerous.
- kozak 10y agoI once bought a burger that had a piece of steel wool in it.
- ihsw 10y agoPretty much, yes. Harvey's has grills in every restaurant and they scrub their grill using such a tool. Then again the grill elements are removed and washed rather than simply scrubbed.
- SuperPaintMan 10y agoIn my kitchen we use stone grill cleaners to avoid this problem.
- silencio 10y agoSame here. Plus a grill scraper for the flat top.
- uptown 10y agoApparently. Found a huge piece of wire in a dish served at Outback Steak House many years ago. Fortunately I caught it before swallowing, and the restaurant was great about it, but I can only imagine the problems it might have caused if swallowed.
- toomanybeersies 10y agoFrom my experience, no. We used to use hard steel srapers and steelos. At one of the restaurants I worked at, we actually had a tank of caustic that we'd soak the grills in overnight twice a week, cleaned them up to like new. Of course, the caustic tank had it's own host of health and safety issues, but that was a staff concern, not a customer concern. That shit was nasty.
- Kenji 10y agoWow! We've been using this kind of brush for decades. I guess we're lucky that nothing happened. I think, though, with proper brushes, none of the bristles come off.
- colejohnson66 10y agoI'd wager it's almost certainly the extremely cheap ones that are prone to this.
- beachstartup 10y agoit's metal. any sort of hypothetical shortcoming in manufacturing process can also be achieved through enough use, especially in a hot environment like a grill.
- brockhaywood 10y agoI would imagine that over time even a proper brush could be weakened such it would be prone to this problem. Most of the bbq brushes i see are not exactly new.
- 04rob 10y ago"Kevin Gallant, of Summerside, P.E.I., had part of his small intestine removed after he swallowed a bristle from a barbecue brush. "I was very ill, probably as close to death as you want to be," he said from his home in Summerside, P.E.I. "The barbecue brush bristle had started to move, so it was trying to come through the wall of my small intestine. So I was told I was very fortunate that they found it, because it would have just pierced through the small intestine into one of my major organs until it found a spot that it would have just killed me." He still uses a bristle brush, but inspects the barbecue thoroughly after using it." Why!?!?!?
- mathattack 10y agoCrazy, but also explains why they are so hard to get rid of.
- dghughes 10y agoSounds like a Jerry Springer episode. Baby you're bad for me but I need you! "Coming up next BBQ Brush nearly killed him but he still wants her back. And forth."
- mathattack 10y agoI hate to admit that I saw Springer lived. Looks even more rigged than on TV. (If possible)
- userbinator 10y agoWhy not? The brush cleans perfectly well and he's now aware of the risks. He'll probably inspect his food a lot more thoroughly too...
- gleenn 10y agoThey have non-bristle brushes too now. If I almost died I'd probably never eat BBQ again
- shanecleveland 10y agoI've been using an alternative over the summer: https://www.amazon.com/GrillFloss-Ultimate-Grill-Cleaning-Tool/dp/B000PAV28E https://www.amazon.com/GrillFloss-Ultimate-Grill-Cleaning-To... Works great. You have to have the round, stainless grill grates.
- ASalazarMX 10y agoThis is as simple and sustainable as you can get. Even the aluminum alternative is more wasteful.
- mhb 10y agoIt looks like that would take a lot longer than I want to spend on that task.
- jaytaylor 10y agoIt'll only need to be used on the bars with gunk on their underside, so you wouldn't necessarily have to do it for each bar.
- arcticfox 10y agoThe last time I was in the emergency room the nearest other patient had partially swallowed a needle. I can still hear the attempt to get it out... So nope, never going to get close to one of these brushes. Good tip.
- pchristensen 10y agoFrom AmazingRibs.com (http://amazingribs.com/BBQ_buyers_guide/grill_grate_cleaning.html http://amazingribs.com/BBQ_buyers_guide/grill_grate_cleaning...) "Be careful with bristle brushes, especially cheap brass bristle brushes. Bristles fall out. Every year there are scores of sad news stories about people eating meals with bristles hiding on them. The bristle gets stuck in their throats or digestive systems, and repairs can get pretty ugly. Every so often someone dies." I bought this from his recommendation, and it has been good so far: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0045UBBO0/tag=amazingribs--20 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0045UBBO0/tag=amazingribs-... Weber 18-Inch Bamboo Grill Brush. Still the easiest, and most effective way to remove grease. Heat the grates and then brush. Simple. There are a variety of brushes like this with rustproof brass bristles but the Weber is my favorite because it is well built. Some have flat scrapers on the end as well as the brush. I like this model because the C shaped scraper on the end.
- ghaff 10y agoThat's just basically his recommendation for a bristle brush though. Clearly lots of people use these so it may indeed just make sense to buy a good one and wipe down the grill after using or whatever. The problem is that I don't think there are any great alternatives to using thin pieces of metal to scrub hot grill in some way shape or form.
- pyre 10y agoPeople have suggested a few in other threads.
- jly 10y agoI just threw mine away. Great tip from the article: use crumpled up aluminum foil to clean the grates, instead.
- SuperPaintMan 10y agoSecond. I was fortunate to have the bristle get jammed into my gums avoiding a ER trip. A few minutes of swearing and tweezering later I was fine :) Stone scrapers are another viable alternative.
- Pxtl 10y agoHow is it legal to sell these things then? Why are they still on shelves? It's dangerous at its intended purpose, making it worse-than-useless.
- wyager 10y ago>It's dangerous at its intended purpose, making it worse-than-useless. You can't authoritatively say this until you have done a thorough cost analysis. Tens or hundreds of millions of people around the world own these sort of brushes and they're very useful and effective for cleaning. I would not be surprised if their utility exceeded the cost of a few GI injuries a year. To be clear, I wouldn't be surprised the other way either.
- colejohnson66 10y agoThey're less dangerous than cars and yet people still drive
- justinlardinois 10y agoI'm not sure I see the comparison. There are plenty of similarly priced alternatives to barbecue scrapers that work just as well while not being as dangerous. What are the alternatives to cars?
- riffic 10y agoPlanning that favors alternative modes such as walking, bicycling, and public transit.
- harryjo 10y agoDoes Amazon sell those? I can't find and planning that favors alternative modes in my local shopping district.
- justinlardinois 10y ago"Planning" is not a product that a consumer can buy, and even then walking, bicycling, and public transit are most useful when you live in a densely packed area and aren't too concerned about traveling outside it. Plus, I was being contrary to what my parent said about the dangers of cars. Aren't bicycles more dangerous?
- jessaustin 10y agoIt's amusing that CBC headline writers felt the need to use the adjective "Canadian" here.
- refurb 10y agoIt's the inferiority complex that has plagued Canadians for centuries. Always in the shadow of the US, Canadians will go to extreme measures to call out if Canada played some role in a news story. Even something like this. Before I get crapped on, I'm a Canadian myself, so I have first hand experience with this
- SuperPaintMan 10y agoThat and the CBC has always had a nationalistic-liberal slant. Gets especially sickening when we are involved in minor international politics or troop deployment. Canada this, Canada that. I still hear people chirping about the damn CanadaArm. More stroking the ego than doing anything of note. (Edit: I am Canadian.)
- goodcanadian 10y agoThe recommendation came from the Canadian Society of Otolaryngology, so yes, it is a recommendation from Canadian surgeons.
- anonymousDan 10y agoCouldn't they have some sort of instrument with a metal detector attached to find things like that?
- gruez 10y agothe metal detectors would have to be incredibly sensitive to pick up a single bristle
- justinlardinois 10y agoIsn't your grill made of metal?
- titanomachy 10y agoPretty sure he meant removal from your body.
- vacri 10y ago... an x-ray machine?
- bfuller 10y agoA trick I learned from Argentinian circus people, who make amazing BBQ, is let the grill heat up and then cut an onion in half to rub on the grate. It imparts a nice flavor and cleans the grill very well.
- markdown 10y agoFijian here. I assumed that was a trick everyone knew.
- dntrkv 10y agoYeah, I'm in the US and I've yet to BBQ with someone that doesn't know this trick.
- Retra 10y agoI'm in the US and I've yet to BBQ with anyone who does. This is the first I've ever heard of it.
- 91bananas 10y agoSame and I real bbq quite frequently and know many people that do and have never heard word of this
- titanomachy 10y agoOK, I think that covers all the possibilities.
- b-orges 10y ago"During a discussion on ingested foreign objects that are difficult to remove..." I wish I had been a fly on the wall for that discussion.
- nikatwork 10y agoJust go drinking with some nurses, they always have good foreign object stories. My fave was about a morbidly obese person who got a whole BBQ chicken lodged in their throat. They called in half the department to "observe" that one.
- FunctionalGuy 10y agoDue to the extreme girth of some of the HN moderators, you'll be banned soon for "fat hate." That's why I'm shadowbanned.
- bloaf 10y agoYou gotta remember to chew those pork chops https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBnnon_iZOM&t=2m50s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBnnon_iZOM&t=2m50s
- dv_dt 10y agoI use a grill cleaning stone (sometimes called a grill pumice or brick cleaner) that works better than the brushes and seems to be more durable/less waste than using aluminium foil.
- sehugg 10y agoI use that to get rid of the stuck food and a butterknife to knock off some dangly bits. But a protective layer of carbon is a pretty nice cooking surface, so I don't go overboard cleaning it.
- dv_dt 10y agoMakes sense to me, if you don't press excessively hard, it's easy to leave most of that carbon layer.
- n00b101 10y agoQuick search brings up what looks like a viable alternative: http://www.thegreatscrape.com/ http://www.thegreatscrape.com/
- dsjoerg 10y agoI've used this for two years now and it works well.
- kaypro 10y agoThanks for this... just ordered one. Cheers!
- Cyph0n 10y agoGood product, but the copy is terrible. > It is made of solid hard wood and is designed for years of grilling pleasure.
- sgc 10y agoIi you follow the link at the bottom of the page to paimn.org, it looks like this is a product made by someone with autism. I don't know if you find that copy cliche or full of innuendo, but I am rather certain it is a harmless error.
- jremple 10y agoAlso http://www.bbqscraper.com/ http://www.bbqscraper.com/
- toomuchtodo 10y agoAmazon carries it for a slightly lower price. Ordered!
- svintus 10y agoI've used it for about half a year, it's alright but doesn't work as well as advertised. Just buy a high quality metal brush, inspect before and after use, replace often. If it sounds like too much trouble you shouldn't be BBQing in the first place.
- genkimind 10y agoThis is a real problem. My wife had been having extreme stomach pain for months, multiple trips to the emergency room, gastroenterologist, nothing could be found. She described that she felt that there was a hole in her stomach, the doctors called it stress. On her final ER visit (two months after the pain began), something showed up in the CT scan (the 3rd one). Embedded in her belly fat was a wire. Everything clicked and I realized we had had steak on the grill the day that the problems started. She went into surgery and had the grill brush wire removed. The wire had poked a hole in her stomach, and somehow worked its way out through the abdominal muscles into her belly fat. We are grateful that it exited that way, instead of into another major organ. Beware.
- rocky1138 10y agoBy the time it reached her belly fat, was the pain any less?
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- genkimind 10y agoThe pain transformed from "there's a hole in my stomach" to "I have a painful lump under my belly button". It was easy to miss, and initially the doctors were just like "Oh it's your belly button". But then one doctor took a closer look with the CT scan and BAM.
- skyrw 10y agoWell, now I'm thoroughly terrified of BBQ.
- alexissantos 10y agoYou and me both. Yeesh!
- tptacek 10y agoFuck this I'm done with brushes.
- foobarian 10y agoI knew it! I was always terrified of those bristles and just don't clean the grill. The coals do a fine job of cleaning it as it is, usually I just quickly scrape it with BBQ tongs.
- justinlardinois 10y agoI don't think cleaning a barbecue grill is about sanitation so much as removing the built up, burnt crap. Heat will take care of the former; the latter could insulate the grill (so your food doesn't cook as evenly) or give an unpleasant flavor.
- foobarian 10y agoIt also depends on the type of grill. Many common gas grills have thick bars with a grease channel, which would trap more gunk than thin rods common on charcoal grills.
- groby_b 10y agoHeat grill for an hour. Pour a beer over it. (Shake & spray, because that's more fun). Rub with newspaper or onion. Season with olive oil. You're good to go.
- justinlardinois 10y agoI doubt the inks used by newspapers are food safe. Besides, who still gets the newspaper?
- whyenot 10y agoLooks like it's pretty harmless. http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/chicago_gardener/2007/07/using-newspaper.html http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/chicago_gardener/200...
- rosege 10y agoa free one gets delivered 3 times a week - pretty annoying actually!
- awqrre 10y agoIt's actually pretty hard to stop the delivery of those free ad newspapers that they throw in your driveway (like the penny saver)... it took me about a year to completely stop them (they kept restarting delivery after a few weeks)
- seanalltogether 10y agofor an hour? that seems like a lot of wasted gas. grills should heat up in about 10 minutes.
- groby_b 10y agoAh, sorry. Charcoal. I'm a traditionalist :)
- 10y ago
- walrus01 10y agoI suppose it's safer to use a BBQ brush with really heavy gauge, thick steel bristles that are less likely to fall out, and that you would definitely notice when biting into a burger?
- dsfyu404ed 10y agoKnotted wire wheel at ~5,000rpm or about 5900ft/min surface speed should do the trick.
- ceejayoz 10y agoI use a welding brush. A tenth of the cost of a BBQ brush, much better made, and the bristles are big enough I'd notice.
- dylanz 10y agoYikes. I just threw mine out after reading this. Mine was so old, bristles actually fell out when I shook it.
- utternerd 10y agoI did this a few months back and replaced it with a "cool cleaning" nylon-based one after I started noticing the extremely tiny metal bristles falling onto my grill. My wife said I was crazy -- today I feel vindicated.
- moonshinefe 10y agowell obviously you aren't crazy at all, who wants tiny metal bristles falling off and potentially getting in their food? Even without this specific case, that sounds awful and dangerous.
- Magi604 10y agoHahaha you need to print this article and place it where she will "randomly" run into it.
- dkarapetyan 10y agoDoes anyone really need further evidence of "intelligent design"?
- djsumdog 10y agoI had no idea this was a problem. I've been using those things for decades. O_o
- OrdaGarb 10y agoRelated: If you tenderize with a Jaccard-like tool, examine the teeth very closely before you cook your meat. I have had the blades break in half longitudinally where it still looked like a full blade, but had actually "delaminated" toward the end and left a 15mm chunk of pointed metal in my steak. It ended up in my gums. I still use the broken blade set, but simply make sure it has all the parts before moving on. Nothing tenderizes quite like it in my experience. Had I swallowed that piece however it would have been a bad situation. Pic: https://imgur.com/a/ZdWBg https://imgur.com/a/ZdWBg
- Zancarius 10y agoOh gosh. It almost makes you terrified of using any implements along those lines. Honestly, I would've never looked for a failure mode like that. You're exceedingly lucky. I have a very distantly related story, although one that's much more benign (thankfully!). Years ago, there was a really nice grocery store in town (local chain) that would make fresh flour tortillas. Whenever we'd think about it, we'd usually stop by and buy a dozen or two. It ended for a few years when I was eating one of them and bit down into a washer that clearly had been pushed through some part of the machine such that it was slightly elongated, flattened, and very slightly sharp on one end. I was lucky in that I neither broke a tooth, swallowed it, or cut my gums; but you can imagine my surprise when I bit down and felt something lodge between my bottom molars. More so when I pulled it out and found a steel washer! I still have that washer somewhere. They eventually sold off their tortilla equipment, possibly also changing management. It's been upgraded in recent years with brand new machinery, and we started buying them occasionally, but I've since developed a slight paranoia whenever I eat food I haven't made myself. I'm a softer chewer now than I was in those days for that reason. :)
- dgacmu 10y agoLentils. Always inspect the darn thing for small, lentil-shaped, lentil-colored rocks. Learned that one the hard way. Luckily (?), it just shattered the one filling I already had in a tooth.
- SamBam 10y ago
- tvongaza 10y agoSlight related topic: Anyone else BBQ a lot, reach to open a beer bottle, but are missing an opener? Why don't they make every BBQ utensil have a decent bottle opener at the end. Better yet, every utensil in your house? Please take this idea and run with, just tell me where to buy a set.
- bbcbasic 10y agoWhy not have the bottle opener attached to the BBQ itself? You could DIY this, or attach a keychain one to a chain to the BBQ.
- SerLava 10y agoDon't take this the wrong way. https://www.google.com/search?num=100&biw=1119&bih=769&q=grill+spatula+with+bottle+opener https://www.google.com/search?num=100&biw=1119&bih=769&q=gri...
- jameshart 10y agoMy grill spatula has a bottle opener embedded in the cutout pattern at the end. When I realized it was a bottle opener I immediately thought 'who would want to open a bottle with a grilling spatula?'. Now, finally, I have my answer: tvongaza would want to open a bottle with a grilling spatula. Sadly I don't recall where we bought our grill tools. Looks, based on a quick google, like it's not an uncommon combination. I think this would probably suit you pretty well: https://www.firebox.com/Machete-Spatula/p7134?mkt=en-us https://www.firebox.com/Machete-Spatula/p7134?mkt=en-us
- 91bananas 10y agoHome Depot sells one like this if you're in the US
- throwaway76543 10y agoThe bottle opener on the end of my grill spatula is the only bottle opener in my entire kitchen that I can reliably find (because it's affixed to this huge grill spatula). I use it to open bottles far, far more often than I use it as a spatula. I don't think I even grilled this year. Someone should make a grill spatula + bottle opener combo without the useless spatula part.
- sverige 10y agoI follow Al Bundy's advice. I never clean my grill. "Ashes from the past for burgers of the future."
- logfromblammo 10y agoI was going to post exactly this before realizing that someone else undoubtedly posted it before me, and I should upvote them. I will only clean my charcoal grill with some hotter fire and a good whack from the grill spatula. Excess [0] ashes go into a bucket for later non-cooking uses. The carbonized residues on the grill create an ablative non-stick coating for any foods you put on it. Also, they make your grill marks black, when they might otherwise be red from the rust. [0] Excess being defined as so much that the charcoal won't light.
- pippy 10y agoIt's interesting many countries such as the US, UK and NZ have banned rare earth magnets due to fear of people swallowing them. The data they used to back the banning included all products ingested, and vice wrote up an article here: http://www.vice.com/read/the-consumer-product-safety-commission-is-leading-a-crusade-against-magnets-122 http://www.vice.com/read/the-consumer-product-safety-commiss... If a product is causing similar health risks, isn't it fair to apply the same ban to it too?
- camiller 10y agorare earth magnets are not banned in the US per se. They are banned from children's toys. But I don't let my kids play with wire brushes either.
- tptacek 10y agoThis is not really true. What the US banned were toys and novelty items based around easily-swallowable rare earth magnets. The ban is on marketing and packaging, not on magnets themselves.
- yladiz 10y agoIn the cases of product being banned for safety, one of the reasons it's generally due to is the potential of swallowing it and causing harm or choking being high enough that a simple warning isn't sufficient. E.g. Buckyballs (swallow two separate groups of those and you'll be lucky to be in IC), Kinder Surprise (sucks, but somewhat understandable). The brush, while potentially dangerous, isn't probably dangerous enough to cause a ban since you don't swallow the brush as a whole and the likelihood of harm, while potentially severe, is small. It's also worth noting that things are generally banned if they'll affect children but not adults, which is a primary reason why the two examples I mentioned were banned.
- aaron695 10y ago> said the number of cases across Canada isn't tracked. We are Neanderthals sometimes. (I'd like to think it was because of privacy reasons)
- maxerickson 10y agoYeah, I wonder how frequently it happens. It's like the lady from reddit that wears ear plugs to bed everyday because of a horrifying experience with a cockroach. Of course you get a few horrifying experiences when you have millions of people doing stuff.
- massel 10y agoIt's because each province maintains their own health care data and many of them refuse to share anything with the others - whether from a paranoid privacy standpoint or a bureaucratic inability to make it happen.
- aaron695 10y agoSo just ask country X for their data? Except every country is this bad. This is the problem, it's the medical community in general. Surly a quick online anonymized form, with a $ kickback/punishment for the hospital, which a lacky could fill in, with patient opt out ability could save lives and $$$ for countries.
- vacri 10y agoSo, my hometown in Melbourne has a reasonably well-known children's hospital, the Royal Children's Hospital. A colleague of mine tried to get an appointment for his kid there, and they told him to apply by fax (who even has a fax anymore?). And even after he supplied all the forms by fax, they still asked him to fax them in the correct order. He ended up going somewhere else. The bureaucracy there comes straight from the consultant doctors. Half a decade ago, an ex-colleague of mine worked in QA there, and there was nothing he could do. Any suggestion he would make would require X or Y department to change procedure or software (some departments couldn't even talk to each other electronically). The departmental heads had their preferred vendors, with their preferred sales reps, with their preferred kickbacks. As soon as you'd float a plan to improve efficiency and intercommunication, the relevant department head would defend their turf with the statement: "If you do this, children will die". Even for something as non-medical as simple appointment software. There is nothing you can say to that, because the department head is the designated expert for X or Y, so they have the final say. Another meeting he was at showed how insular the place was. A comment was made by one departmental head, and one of the old guard (30 years or so) dismissed him as "we don't do that here. if you'd been here any length of time, you'd know that". The reply was "I've been here for 17 years...". The RCH is a particularly bad example of this, but it's illustrative of politics. There is so much politics and turf warfare in medicine, some hospitals worse than others, that homogenising a system cannot happen unless it is a specific priority driven from the top, as only the top has the authority to tell the lieutenants to "just fucking do it". It's not paranoia or bureaucracy that creates these silos - it's politics and nest-feathering.
- jedanbik 10y agoI like to ball up aluminium foil, and scrape the grill with that. Pretty hard not to see it.
- perseusprime11 10y agoHere's a grill brush that you can use with a cut onion. Safe to use and no worry about bristles. Sorry here's the link: http://thegrillion.com/ http://thegrillion.com/
- dghughes 10y agoThis would be perfect https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcvcEg0xGYY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcvcEg0xGYY And only about $250,000 each.
- dirtbox 10y agoThe traditional BBQ method of the Aboriginal Australians is the one I like best. You pull a dead tree down, light it, then roll a supermarket trolley/cart filled with meat into the resulting fire.
- racl101 10y agoScared me straight. I'm chucking mine.
- rednerrus 10y agoTake a piece of aluminum foil and ball it up and use that to clean your grill.
- foxfired 10y agoWhen I go to Korean BBQ with my colleagues, we use the chopped onion to clean the grill.
- tekni5 10y agoI use one of these bristle brushes because I didn't know better, I've also even seen a few bristles fall out before & had me a bit concerned. However I always end up microwaving for 30 seconds after, because by the time I've let the meat rest and turned off the grill my food isn't as warm as I want it. So maybe I've been lucky, as I figure there would have been a reaction if there was metal in the microwave. Anyways now I'm looking for an alternative, I'm thinking of using a large wooden spatula and let it conform to the grill overtime.
- mynameishere 10y agoNever BBQ'd anything. If I didn't know better, I'd get some heavy-duty lye-based oven cleaner and burn off the gunk. Is that not a valid alternative to physical removal?
- peeters 10y agoIt's not something you'd want to be doing every day before grilling. The usual ritual for most people who grill would be to heat up the grill till it's at cooking temperature, then scrape for 20 seconds with the brush just before putting the food on.
- MaxfordAndSons 10y agoI didn't know Canada was so big on barbecue.
- rosege 10y agoi feel guilty - i had a bbq a few weeks ago for a group of friends and cleaned my bbq with one of these - although the wires seem thicker - ill have to check when I get home - either way I think im not going to use it again - not worth the risk!
- icantdrive55 10y agoI hate to add to the wire brush worry, but it's not just BBQ. So many resturants use wire brushes. The last burrito I had was a few months ago. It had piece of wire in it. I kept the wire for a few days, and thought about it. The wire was not from a brush. I think it was old copper telephone wire. It that might have fell onto the grill from the ceiling, or wall? Anyways, I haven't had a burrito since that instance. And tonight, I just got the visual of them cleaning the grill with a big, old wire brush--with gusto. Now I think about it, they had all types of black brushes near the grill. Those grills are just large pieces of steel, without holes, or spaces. If loose wire isn't caught by the cook it just gets mixed in with the of steak, chicken, whatever. (They make small metal detectors. My watch parts supplier is always advertising them. They claim they will find watch parts on the ground. I wonder if they could detect those small bristles?)
- Grangar 10y agoWow, I'm feeling pretty paranoid now.
- tartuffe78 10y agoDon't worry too much about this, there are a dozen other things you don't know about that get close to killing you every day ;)
- softawre 10y agoYou make me smile. The sort of worried, am I going to die today smile.
- lsc 10y agoI have a bunch of earplugs I got (on sale) that are "detectable" - they have a small steel rivet in them; the idea being that if you are manufacturing food on an industrial scale, you don't want some poor bastard finding your lost earplug in her "Hungry Man" dinner, so they just run 'em through a metal detector on the way out as part of the QC process. I bet you could do the same thing with fresh food, but I'm not sure it would be worth it. If nothing else, I don't think your typical metal detector is going to detect copper. For my money, I'd like my local food-serving establishment to put the effort into hygiene.
- dangero 10y agoThis issue is actually not isolated to just barbecues and barbecue brushes although the fact that it gets into your food does make it worse. A few weeks ago my friend invited me to their high class HOA pool that had a sand beach. Wading around in about a foot of water I felt something pierce my foot when I took a step. When I pulled my foot out of the water to see what it was I could see it was a thin piece of metal and it had gone in all the way to my bone. I concluded it probably came off a metal brush they use around the pool. Maybe something like this: https://www.amazon.com/Performance-Tool-W1148-Stainless-3-Piece/dp/B000N3209S/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1472800536&sr=8-2&keywords=metal+brush https://www.amazon.com/Performance-Tool-W1148-Stainless-3-Pi... That's when I realized that these types of metal brushes are a huge environmental hazard in general. They should probably be illegal in certain settings -- sand beaches being one of them.
- GigabyteCoin 10y agoI reached down to grab a piece of wood to place into my campfire years ago and felt this unbelievably jarring pain go through my thumb (considering how gently I had placed my hand down to grab the piece of wood, the level of pain was immense). There was a very tiny piece of something stuck in my thumb, which I was able to remove but not able to inspect very closely as it was pitch black outside and I was working with a flashlight. I wrote it off as most likely being a splinter of glass from somebody's smashed beer bottle that had gone straight through my skin. Reading this, however... it was much more likely a metal bristle from somebody's cheap camping brush that they used to clean their camping grill.
- crypt1d 10y agoShouldn't the manufacturer of these brushes be held responsible for such issues?
- sneak 10y agoNo reasonable person would think that, no.
- brainfire 10y agoThe answer to this depends on information not present in the article, and is probably not possible to answer without an actual lawsuit. Are the manufacturers taking reasonable steps to avoid the problem? If so they're probably not responsible. If there are internal emails at the company saying "well our testing shows it might kill people but we'll save 2 cents per brush if we accept weaker wire attachments" then sure. I doubt it's that clear cut.
- Pica_soO 10y agoReminds me of my former boss in a bakery- he would get mad if somebody used sponge iron to clean or would instantly empty stuff from opened metal containers into the dough kneader.
- CodeWriter23 10y agoI never use them. I have a heavy gauge spatula that I use to scrape the top, then hold it at a 45 degree angle to scrape in between the wires that form the rack. The bottom doesn't get clean. Nobody has ever gotten sick nor required surgery. As a result of reading this article and thread though I will never use one and proactively warn friends and family about them.
- euroclydon 10y agoJust use a putty knife to scrape off the grates. It takes a little time. If you want it to go faster, grind a groove in the knife to fit a grill bar.
- agentgt 10y agoI do that as well. The other thing is I have cast iron grates which seem to not need as much cleaning as other grates.
- stinos 10y agoWe usually barbecue in the evening and when finished put the grill in the grass, leave it there for a couple of nights. Because of the dew everything on there gets soaking wet and becomes easy to remove. With, for instance, grass or weeds. No brushes, no waste.
- acchow 10y agoYou clean your grill with grass? And the next time you use it, your food doesn't taste like lawn?
- nefitty 10y agoMeat is murder, in more ways than one.
- cafard 10y agoI wasn't happy with the warnings on the brush, but I used it. Then when it was time to change the head, the cheap screws stripped, and I switched to abrasive cleaner. They work pretty well.
- woliveirajr 10y agoThis thread caught my attention because I never heard of similar things here in Brazil (at least not in the south, where BBQ is a basic need) Reasons: 1 - we use lifts (?): like this one [1] 2 - people, in general, clean the grill using some rough paper while the grill is still hot, then wash it with some sponge, water and soap. Hardly something that has metal (like brass or steel brush) is used, since they affect the grill surface with small scratches that will accumulate more fat next time,in an endless loop. [1] http://www.gudim.com.br/produtos/espeto_duplo.png http://www.gudim.com.br/produtos/espeto_duplo.png
- oftenwrong 10y ago>lifts (?) "Spits" (as in "spit-roasted"), or "skewers"
- cmdrfred 10y agoI cooked for nearly a decade. Every restaurant ive worked at had an old grill brush (owners are cheap) with bristles falling off. Never eating a burger that isn't done on a flat top (5 guys) or by my own hand again.
- kaffeinecoma 10y agoParanoid patient question: when one goes for an MRI, is there any kind of scan for foreign metal objects? I'm sure they ask if you have any devices implanted, but do they actually check for the unexpected? What would happen if you had one of these little bristles and you didn't know it?
- thesimon 10y ago>when one goes for an MRI, is there any kind of scan for foreign metal objects? No.
- jshevek 10y agoI'm not aware of any such scan, and I'd feel a lot safer if there were such a tool. I simply can't be sure if I have any embedded metal fragments, and do not want to discover this by having any such pieces rip through my body.
- DDickson 10y agoMy father has worked with metal his whole life. If just a tiny sliver of metal shaving landed in his eye and worked it's way around to the back, an MRI would tear it straight through the eye ball.
- lovedj 10y agoI always thought that was either an urban legend, or that only unskilled, stupid people swallowed or inhaled pins. But she had probably done that for years. Her co-workers, too. She wasn't naive or thoughtless. That's what scares me. I do that (well, DID that) every time I work on something... pins are staying in the cushion now.
- halite 10y agoWhy not wash grills just like regular dishes? My grills come off and once I'm done cooking, I rinse and put them in dishwasher.
- emodendroket 10y agoThank you for creating a new anxiety for me.
- instakill 10y agoI'm sorry if I'm late and ignorant but do people not chew? Surely if you chew enough you'll detect a piece of metal in your mouth!
- awqrre 10y agoHave you never swallowed a fish bone? it's probably a bit similar...
- Magi604 10y agoI was inspecting my portable bbq the other day and I noted that the cleaning bristle I keep with it was looking kind of worn out. Time to throw it out!
- exabrial 10y agoLeave it to the Canadians to ruin BBQ. J/K, the real trick it to clean it after you're doing using it and not let the solids cool. I use a foil ball most of the time.
- mdip 10y agoThat's how I've always done it - frankly, it never occurred to me to clean it beforehand. The grill is already hot so I just turn it up, close the lid for a few seconds, open it back up and scrape it to death. I've never had this problem because when I'm done the surface has nothing on it but metal. That said, those bristle brushes are very hard on my non-stainless steel grates and the coating is starting to chip off, so I'm replacing them this year and had planned on switching to a wood scraper -- this article pretty much sold me the rest of the way.
- exabrial 10y agoWood? have a link? I'm curious
- agentgt 10y agoSlightly off topic but I'm just going to throw it out there. If you are cooking with charcoal I highly recommend a Kamado style grill aka big green egg (BGE). Once you get one of those you will never go back. It is extremely efficient with charcoal. There is one made by Char-Griller that is dirt cheap and light that I use year round (another advantage of the kamado is it can be freezing out and you can still grill fine).
- hoodoof 10y agoI won't use pans with non stick surface coatings either. Over time, the non stick coating wears away, but where did it go? It tends to have gone away in the areas where the food goes. Thus the non stick coating goes into your food. I threw out all my non stick pans and pots and bought stainless steel and never looked back. DuPont has us convinced we need non stick coated kitchenware but stainless steel is perfectly fine.
- awqrre 10y agoat 350C, teflon starts to release toxic particles and gases [1] 1. http://swac.web.unc.edu/files/2015/07/Teflon-infographic-1024x667.jpeg http://swac.web.unc.edu/files/2015/07/Teflon-infographic-102...
- hoodoof 10y agoThe other thing is that burnt food is carcinogenic. LOTS of people eat burned BBQ food.
- anonbanker 10y agoAlmost as bad as ingesting bristles is how commonly people are using metal brushes to clean their teflon-coated grill equipment. The teflon breaks off, becoming part of the food you're cooking. Ingesting teflon flakes (at/from grill temperatures above 450 degrees) is a direct route to autoimmune disease due to the fluoropolymers, as well as higher cancer risk from perfluorooctanoic acid. I can't tell you how many times I've seen metal brushes next to teflon-coated grills. Or even worse, visibly flaked teflon coating on grills heated to high temperatures. Suffice it to say, it's been often enough to remark on. Should you decide to own teflon-coated grill equipment, use an onion to clean your grill next time; it's far less abrasive.
- Havoc 10y agoHad that happen to me. Fucking terrifying experience. By some miracle it dislodged from my throat and I was able to spit it out. So wasn't deep in the first place, but enough to rattle me.
- honopu 10y agoMy father in law actually created a brush type tool to clean a grill, but has no chance of losing bristles. http://grillbros.com/ http://grillbros.com/ I know he has several hundred of these to sell. They work well but he definitely needs a distributor.
- gamedna 10y agoMy favorite grill grate cleaning tool is this grill scrubber: https://www.amazon.com/Charcoal-Companion-Single-Scrubber-Refill/dp/B000QDA0W4/ref=pd_bxgy_86_img_3?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=6H65Z77SRWWAVZSP0NRC https://www.amazon.com/Charcoal-Companion-Single-Scrubber-Re... You can replace the scrubber with any generic metal scrubbing pad and it works fantastically.