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

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121–130 of 324 posts

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

#121

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

Those shredded reconstituted blocks of glass that look vaguely sponge like work really well too, though you gotta rinse it down pretty aggressively afterwards and wipe with a cloth cus it gets powder all over the place.

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

#122

So what are some alternatives?

I've been using balls of crumpled up aluminum foil held with tongs. My father grills more often than I do and I bought him a dedicated tool for grill cleaning from a craft fair; it's a brass disk on a stick, with various grate profiles cut out of the disk. It works well, but is a little slower than some other tools. Looks like the creator has a web store now[1]. 1. https://www.grillgadget.com/

I like this idea but cleaning each little grill bar individually sounds too time consuming.

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

#123
post #49

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.

You should have sued the restaurant to force them to stop impaling their customers.

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

#125

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't buy a brush that day. Any recommendations for a good non-metal brush?

I use a steel brush intended for cleaning off welding residue. It has much thicker, longer steel wires that would be difficult to miss if they came out of the brush head (which hasn't ever happened yet).

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

#128

Steel wool is safer, no doubt, but this shouldn'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're more concerned about speed and don't take the care...

Isn’t steel wool flammable? I wouldn’t want to use that on a grill.

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

#129

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.

I had the same problem. This is from 2016 and the issue was likely known a lot earlier, yet I never heard of it and most people I know with a bbq clean it that way.

Which in itself references a huge problem. How do you combat conventional wisdom and traditions?

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

#130
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously you can clean them the same way you clean any other greasy cooking utensil. Those green plastic scrubbers (like scotch guard) work fine. I have a small bbq and I just take the grills off and put them in the dishwasher! That has a non-stick coating so I wouldn’t want to use a wire brush anyway. The large bbq just gets a hand wash.

Just don't use a scotchbrite on a hot grill.

Ha! There's really little reason to try "cleaning" a hot grill.
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