Killer BBQ Brushes!

Have you heard that wire BBQ brushes are dangerous? I had no idea! Last year, I started hearing about the dangers of using the wire BBQ scrapers. I remember thinking, where did this come from? In my experience, there has always been a wire brush sitting next to all of the barbeques in my memories.  If it was really that bad, why hadn't I heard of this before? Well, apparently, it has been an issue -- to the point that Health Canada is looking into whether they should be pulled from store shelves. (See an article from yesterday, from CBC: Saint John BBQer Swallowed Brush Wire w/ Burger ) The idea of swallowing that gives me the heeby jeebies, so I chucked ours in the trash. 

Of course, then I had to figure out what to use. I was at Costco one day and saw this scraper:

It was a bit pricey, but we decided to give it a try. Luckily it works, and I don't think it will injure me or my family!

I still wondered what other people use, so I had done a little research and found a few ideas online:

1.  Half of an onion - This surprised me, but I could see how it would work!

2.  Wooden Scraper, like the one above - The "Great Scrape" works awesome, but I feel like you could probably make your own, by just using a piece of wood or maybe even a cedar shingle. 

3.  Aluminum Foil - crumple it up, and rub it against the grills using a pair of tongs. Easy peasy! 

4.  Other scrapers - I've seen ones that look like scrubbers you would use when doing dishes

5.  Burn it off! Leave the BBQ on for a bit and burn off any food remnants. Of course, this doesn't always do the trick and can leave burnt bits, so a scraper would still need to be used. No one wants burnt bits on their food! 

Basically, do what you need to, but throw out those metal wire scrapers! No one wants to serve metal at their summer BBQ!