Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ brushes • Hacker News Board

Re: Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ brushes

#21

Post by wyager » Thu, Sep 01, 2016, 11:34 PM UTC

Pxtl wrote: post #16

How 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.

>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.

Re: Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ brushes

#22

Post by bfuller » Thu, Sep 01, 2016, 11:35 PM UTC

A 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.

Re: Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ brushes

#23

Post by gruez » Thu, Sep 01, 2016, 11:36 PM UTC

anonymousDan wrote: post #19

Couldn't they have some sort of instrument with a metal detector attached to find things like that?

the metal detectors would have to be incredibly sensitive to pick up a single bristle

Re: Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ brushes

#24

Post by btkramer9 » Thu, Sep 01, 2016, 11:36 PM UTC

zackbloom wrote: post #4

goldenkey wrote: post #2

Time to throw my grill brush away. It always hurt when I accidently touched it anyhow. Steel wool is probably safer and better anyhow.

My 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.

A 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-debat.... I couldn't find a 'best' link but after looking at few the point is clear

Re: Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ brushes

#25

Post by b-orges » Thu, Sep 01, 2016, 11:40 PM UTC

"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.

Re: Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ brushes

#26

Post by ghaff » Thu, Sep 01, 2016, 11:41 PM UTC

pchristensen wrote: post #13

From AmazingRibs.com ( 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…

That'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.

Re: Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ brushes

#27

Post by ASalazarMX » Thu, Sep 01, 2016, 11:42 PM UTC

shanecleveland wrote: post #10

I've been using an alternative over the summer: https://www.amazon.com/GrillFloss-Ultimate-Grill-Cleaning-To... Works great. You have to have the round, stainless grill grates.

This is as simple and sustainable as you can get. Even the aluminum alternative is more wasteful.

Re: Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ brushes

#28

Post by markdown » Thu, Sep 01, 2016, 11:42 PM UTC

bfuller wrote: post #22

A 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.

Fijian here. I assumed that was a trick everyone knew.

Re: Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ brushes

#29

Post by jrowley » Thu, Sep 01, 2016, 11:42 PM UTC

bfuller wrote: post #22

A 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.

Off topic but any other tricks you learned from Argentinian circus people? Or circus people in general?

Re: Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ brushes

#30

Post by dv_dt » Thu, Sep 01, 2016, 11:44 PM UTC

I 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.