Surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ brushes (2016)

Once, I got a bristle in a waffle cone from an ice cream parlor. Fortunately, I noticed it in my mouth before I swallowed. The parlor used a steel brush to scrub the griddles clean. Their policy is to bake a waffle cone after cleaning and immediately throw it away to catch stray bristles. One employee didn't follow the policy.

When this news first came out, I tried practically all the alternatives. My personal experiences:<p>Wadded up aluminum foil: really does not work well. It gets loose grime off, but anything at all burnt on will take very vigorous scrubbing and possibly result in shredded foil everywhere. Also feels like a huge waste of foil.<p>Wooden scraper: works ok, since it&#x27;s not flexible doesn&#x27;t get between the slats well, need to put a lot of elbow grease in to get stuck-on stuff, and if you leave it outside in my high humidity region - even under a cover - it will get disgusting fast<p>Abrasive pads&#x2F;steel wool - work surprisingly well, but need to be replaced constantly and it&#x27;s fairly disgusting work (you will feel like you need a shower afterwards) because you are basically in the grill<p>Nylon brush - did literally nothing.<p>The solution I&#x27;m currently on is a wire brush that is continuous spirals of wire rather than bristles. Available from your preferred online merchant, etc. Does not work nearly as well as a traditional wire brush: have to use quite a bit more force, and very awkward to maneuver it between the slats. That said, it gets the job done very well and it&#x27;s durable.

The caption to one of the photos is priceless:<p>&gt; <i>Kevin Gallant, of Summerside, P.E.I., had part of his small intestine removed after he swallowed a bristle from a barbecue brush. He still uses a bristle brush, but inspects the barbecue thoroughly after using it.</i><p>He still uses a bristle brush.

How is it that the manufacturers haven&#x27;t had a class action put their way? I mean, they are knowingly making a product that fails in regular usage in a way that is almost impossible to prevent or detect completely.<p>I&#x27;d suggest these types of scrapers be legislated against since they are incapable of being used safely in reasonable intended usage.

I switched to using a wooden scraper a couple years ago, when I first read this report. Works great!<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;Great-Scrape-Woody-Paddle-Natural&#x2F;dp&#x2F;B013S1SM4I" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;Great-Scrape-Woody-Paddle-Natural&#x2F;dp&#x2F;...</a>

Steel wool is safer, no doubt, but this shouldn&#x27;t really be anything more than a freak occurrence if you clean a grill properly. The wire brush is just the first step to remove the coarse stuff. Soap, water, and some kind of fine abrasive pad or scrubbing cleaner should remove these barbs. I guess at some restaurants, they&#x27;re more concerned about speed and don&#x27;t take the care...

I am mildly surprised this is a problem. I&#x27;ve used a wire brush to clean the grill for as long as I&#x27;ve grilled and had no issues. But then, I&#x27;ve always combined using a wire brush with pre- and post-cooking heating the grill at full power to burn off accumulated stuff. The wire brush is far more effective at scrubbing things off when the crud is beginning to ash, as opposed to the partially-caramelized state it was in when the food first came off.<p>Edit: I will additionally add that I also scrub the grill plates on occasion, because as mentioned in other comments, the accumulated crud makes food more likely to stick and can also impart a bad taste.

Why do you clean a grill?<p>Let the carbon build up. It&#x27;s seasoning and food doesn&#x27;t stick to it.<p>Just preheat the grill to burn off any remains from the prior use. If there&#x27;s really heavy buildup, use a straight edge scraper like a paint scraper or heavy spatula.<p>Cleaning a grill down to shiny bare metal is a sure way to have all your food stick to it every time.

I threw mine out after using it once, and seeing that the BBQ had quite a few bristles stuck on it. I can&#x27;t believe people actually use those things, it seems horribly unsafe.

I have used a wadded-up piece of aluminum foil for this purpose for years. Works better than a bristle brush and no bristles!

I&#x27;m not sure if it was exactly the same type of brush, but a number of years ago I found a wire from a grill brush in my mouth after taking a bit at an Outback Steakhouse. The restaurant was profusely apologetic and comped our meal without our asking them. I feel very fortunate to have felt it before I swallowed in light of this, and other articles I&#x27;ve read, since that meal, but unfortunately there&#x27;s no way to control whether restaurants change the tools they use in-light of these warnings.

Wow what a nightmare, in the article that poor women couldn’t even get it taken out after dozens of x rays and attempted surgeries. I saw from another comment this is from 2016 but somehow I missed it and appreciate the link. Throwing mine out right now.

Can confirm this is terrifying. Zero out of 5 stars.<p>I once pulled a bristle out from between my molars. Thought about it for 5 minutes...realized it was from the grill (was eating a salad made of leftover grilled chicken). Googled “wire grill brush swallow”. Read horror stories. Immediately freaked out. Even used a metal detector like you would use on a beach on my stomach to see if I swallowed more (didn’t work). Spent the week waiting for disaster to strike (it didnt). Immediately threw out all wire grill brushes forever.

&quot;Hospitals in the Halifax area are seeing at least one or two cases each week&quot;<p>Wow - that&#x27;s an incredible rate - I wonder what the national statistics are like?

It&#x27;s infuriating that articles about a problem like this don&#x27;t spend just one single sentence on possible alternatives, even though the surgeons are begging.<p>Fire the editor.<p>Alternatives I&#x27;ve seen in this thread are a ball of wadded up aluminum foil, a wooden scraper, abrasive pads, and stiff plastic bristles (EDIT: and an onion). This proves once again that the HN comments section is often better than the article itself.

I think this exactly article was already discussed here: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=12409425" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=12409425</a><p>There were some good tips on how to avoid the brushes for once.

My solution:<p>1. Use a grill with wide slats instead of round steel bars 2. Run the grill on high for ten minutes after cooking to burn everything to a fine ash 3. Use grill mats when possible so I don&#x27;t have to clean the grill to begin with<p>I just use damp paper towels to clean up the grill before I use it since I burn everything off after the previous cook session.

The easiest way to clean it is:<p>1. Let the grill get hot, simple by waiting some minutes with the charcoal on fire<p>2. Rub with something to clean old grit, with paper, half of an onion, piece of fat from some meat and any sponge slightly wet being good.

having worked in a commercial kitchen with a grill station, believe it or not the easiest thing to do with dirty grates was to throw them in the dishwasher or soak them overnight with the soda fountain tips in a mild solution of bleach. our grates were mild steel and cast iron.<p>We would start our grills at 5-6 AM for breakfast sausage and ham, which did a great job of re-seasoning the grates if youre curious. day shift would take over from there with the station menu from our chefs. Generally we were careful to avoid sticky marinades or mops for the grill to keep things tidy and sane. Ribs were cooked in the oven, then transferred&#x2F;finalized on the grill station. When this got too cumbersome we leased a commercial smoker for a few years.<p>speaking from experience though, the sanest way to keep those grates from getting insane was to wipe them down as you go with an oily onion or oily rag in some tongs. Avoid teriyaki or yogurt marinades like the plague and never leave the station &quot;wet.&quot; get to things before they set, especially proteins.

So what are some alternatives?

I&#x27;m inclined to primarily blame the general loss of consumer goods build quality over the past ~25 years.<p>What proportion of these brushes giving up their bristles in sufficient quantities to be on Surgeons&#x27; radars were made in China?<p>Growing up we had zero plastic-handled brush options. They were all well-built, wood-handled beasts and the bristles would be mutilated and disgusting prompting replacement long before they were falling out of the holder.<p>You can&#x27;t even buy a manual can-opener that doesn&#x27;t deform into a useless paperweight on first use at a big-box store anymore. Why expect their grill brushes to be any better?<p>Edit: To clarify, I&#x27;ve seen many plastic grill brushes on shelves at stores. It has become increasingly difficult to find anything made of wood in the kitchen-related isles of stores like Wal-Mart and Target. There are obvious problems with a plastic-handled grill brush. The tendency is to heat the grill prior to brushing, which softens the plastic, loosening the grip on the bristles over time.

Does it make a difference how the wire brush is made? I know of two types, let me call one flat and the other wound. Flat is where wire bristles are inset into a flat head on a handle. Wound is were the bristles are held by wires twisting around (which often have a triangle head for BBQ brushes and are made the same as typical bottle brush).<p>Are they equally bad?

Wow, such a surprisingly severe consequence for (mis)using an innocuous tool as a wire brush!<p>Incidentally, our household switched away from brushes a few years ago; we stumbled on a very quick and effective solution after dad got in to reloading. A few of the shorter 2.75&quot; shells loaded with rock salt from the 12ga work wonders on the grill.

These products need to be pulled from stores. Use a copper sponge with soap and water. Cleans the grill up great.

Last time I saw this here in 2016 I tossed my wire brush and got wooden scraper. It works pretty well.

I use chainmail to clean my grill to avoid this very thing. I also use a power-washer occasionally.

A trick I learned from a friend is to cover all the grills with sheets of foil, close the lid and heat the bbq to a high temperature for a short period of time and then remove the foil. Most of the crud should come off easily after that.

I went to buy a BBQ brush last year and all they had were metal bristle brushes. I was surprised given all the bad publicity about this. Needless to say, I didn&#x27;t buy a brush that day. Any recommendations for a good non-metal brush?

An acquaintance once told me she had accidentally inhaled a sewing needle as a child. She had loaded it into a straw and was planning to blowgun it at her little brother. But she made the horrible mistake of deeply inhaling <i>after</i> the straw was in her mouth thereby inhaling the needle.<p>IIRC the doctor advised her to eat cotton. She eventually passed the needle in a wad of cotton. Personally I am skeptical of this story. Does anyone feel that this approach might work when a bristle from a BBQ brush is not recoverable by surgery ?

I use a chain scrubber to excellent effect - the same that I use for my cast iron. I find it does a better job than the bristle brush, though it does tend to get my hands a little messier.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;Ringer-Original-Stainless-Cleaner-Patented&#x2F;dp&#x2F;B00FKBR1ZG" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;Ringer-Original-Stainless-Cleaner-Pat...</a> (This is a direct link)

Just take the grill off the BBQ at the end once it has cooled and wrap it in wet newspaper, leave over night and wipe down the next day. Like new.

Serious question: how do I clean my grill instead?

I just never clean my grill... problem solved.

Is there anything better than finding there are 263 comments here on this article? I&#x27;m settling in for while.

I got freaked out when I learned about this a while back.<p>It seems wire brushes for grill cleaning come in various levels of quality, and it’s the lower-quality ones that tend to have this issue. The problem is that you can’t truly know the quality of your brush until you use it. (And either find bristles in your good or not.)

My brother got a bristle from a grill lodged in his throat, it took a couple trips to the surgeon to remove and was extremely painful. And I still have a bristle brush, but I always scrape with the straight edge a few times afterwords (ever since).

I literally just went to an ENT doctor to get a bristle removed from my throat yesterday. It didn&#x27;t effect my breathing or eating, but it was very uncomfortable. I went a week without getting xrays of my throat. It&#x27;s not fun.

I&#x27;ve been using a small square of chainmail to clean my grill (and occasionally my cast iron pans) and follow it up with a damp paper towel It works well but is kind of a PITA compared to a wire brush.

I grill probably twice a week.<p>I rarely clean the grill, it doesn&#x27;t seem to make much of a difference whether there&#x27;s any buildup on the bars or not.<p>I&#x27;ve read about this some months ago, what a nightmare scenario!

My father in law got sick of crappy brushes, so he created one: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;grillbros.com" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;grillbros.com</a><p>It works really well for a &quot;standard&quot; grill.

I read about this a couple years ago and now live in complete terror of bristles. Unfortunately the alternates are kind of a pain to use, but hey, it beats what these articles describe.

Freaky. Are iron wool scrapers safe? Or do the fibers affect you too?

the trick is to brush the grill before it gets hot. you can always rinse the gunk out of your grill brush but you can&#x27;t un-melt the plastic that keeps the brisles attached. Give it a quick second brushing after it&#x27;s heated up, if you want. Since it is already mostly clean, you don&#x27;t spend as much time loosening&#x2F;melting your brush. I figured this out when I found one of those bristles on some ribs I made. Fortunately, it was before I put it in my mouth.

I once found a bit of wire in a sausage I was eating that I&#x27;d bought from my favorite local sausage maker. I&#x27;ve been too scared to try their sausages again :(

If the grates are removable, wouldn&#x27;t the clean function (crazy high heat) of your oven clean them? Basically turns everything into easy to wash off ash.

Had one stuck in my throat. It&#x27;s absolutely terrifying

What kind of cheap brushes are being used? I&#x27;ve used Weber bristle brushes for years (the spiral ones) and have never seen a single detached bristle.

This entire comment thread is the most Reddit thing that I&#x27;ve ever seen on Hacker News (and I&#x27;m not sure how I feel about it)

I got a grill brush with bamboo bristles. Works great. Metal wire brushes are terrifying.

I had this happen once at a Chinese rwstaurant. I should have complained more I guess =\

What are people using as an alternative to a bristle brush?

After serving my family a delicious snack, I typically smash into my grill full speed with my Hummer H3, super hemi. That knocks all the nasties away.

(2016)

If the surgeon can&#x27;t access the bristle w&#x2F;out damaging surrounding tissue, they should use a strong electromagnet on the axis of the wire.<p>(Don&#x27;t try this at home).<p>if the angle is bad (threatens other structures as it comes out), potentially clip the wire as it emerges.