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🇺🇸recall of over 3.2 million metal wire bristle grill brushes due to dislodged wire bristles causing injuries requiring surgery; +bonus tumblr PSA: this is NOT a safe category of product🇺🇸

mouthful of a title, and a lot more detail than usual, because some absolutely horrifying nightmare fuel shit came up while making this post. thanks for your patience. no matter where you are in the world, if you have a grill or know anyone that does, you might want to read this.

the ultrafine bristles on weber metal wire grill brushes (and fine metal wire grill brushes as a whole) silently detach from the brush, stick to the grill, and eventually get stuck in food that people put in their mouth. these bristles are often difficult or impossible to spot in grilled food before it gets eaten. when food contaminated with even one single metal bristle gets eaten, the sharp bristle(s) easily and painfully pierce (and sometimes embed themselves in) victims' mouths, throats, and/or digestive tracts.

the recalled weber metal wire grill brushes were imported by weber-stephen products LLC and were sold online and in stores at lowe's, home depot, ace hardware, target, amazon.com, and weber.com from 2011 through 2026 for $10-$17. also sold on resale sites like ebay. this information is for whatever reason not actually listed in the CPSC recall announcement itself, but according to weber's official recall website, the recalled grill brushes were also sold at tractor supply, best buy, and "other" stores.

15 years of highly recommended, respected, 'good' metal wire grill brushes being recalled here. weber is offering free nylon wire grill brush replacements if you submit a photo and then promise to dispose of your recalled metal wire grill brushes. weber is aware of at least 38 reports and reviews of wire bristles coming off of the brushes. this includes 4 reports of people who ate food containing weber wire bristles and needed surgery to remove it from their throat or digestive tract.

so, I (rune) spent a few hours reading and summarizing the past 15 years of saferproducts.gov incident reports for metal wire bristles dislodging from grill brushes as a whole, both weber and non-weber metal wire grill brushes, to learn more about this category of product and the type of injuries they cause.

metal wire grill brush injuries (even from one single bristle!) often require weeks to months of agony, a ton of imaging, multiple different hospitals, several medical specialists, and multiple unsuccessful surgeries before the wire bristles get successfully removed...if surgery is ever successful. summarized incident reports and names of other hazardous metal wire grill brushes are compiled at the bottom of this post, under the cut, due to increasingly graphic injury descriptions and enormous number of reports.

for the US: please report unsafe products and please read reports of unsafe products at saferproducts.gov, which is run by the US consumer product safety commission (CPSC). you want that website bookmarked, as well as CPSC.gov/recalls and the ever-shitty recalls.gov/recent for a compilation of other official US recall links (click through the RSS feed links, the RSS recall feed previews are dangerously outdated). there are a shitload of unsafe products responsible for years of safety incidents, injuries, and sometimes deaths that have not yet been recalled and are often still actively being sold in the united states. many US product recalls only happen because safety incidents, including those involving injury or death, get reported on saferproducts.gov specifically. there have already been hundreds if not thousands of recalls across different US regulatory agencies in 2026 alone, as of march 2nd, 2026.

whether or not your metal wire grill brush is one of the ones involved in this weber recall, regardless of your brand or model of metal wire grill brush, and regardless of where you live in the world, please consider switching away from metal wire bristle grill brushes as a whole. clean your grill with anything else. try metal coil grill brushes, nylon grill brushes, bristle-free grill brushes, scrub pads, chainmail scrubbers, ANYTHING other than grill brushes with metal wire bristles that can detach and land you or someone you care about in the hospital.

and in fact, if you have a safer recommendation for grill cleaning, leave it in a reply or reblog. holy fucking shit, nothing is worth the injuries caused by this entire category of product.

https://www.cpsc.gov/Recalls/2026/Weber-Recalls-Over-3-2-Million-Metal-Wire-Bristle-Grill-Brushes-Due-to-Ingestion-Hazard

Hazard: Small metal wire bristles can detach from the brushes, stick to the grill or food, posing an ingestion hazard and risk of serious internal injuries that could require surgery. Remedy: Replace Recall Date: February 26, 2026 Units: About 3.2 million

these grills brushes are made up of tiny sharp metal wires, and are used to harshly scrub and clean grills. sometimes these bristles fall off the brush and wind up stuck to the grill. those bristles eventually wind up stuck in food cooked on that grill, and then that food goes into someone's mouth. do you normally remove the bun and use a magnifying glass and knife to carefully inspect and dissect an entire fucking burger handed to you by a grillmaster at a BBQ before trying to eat it? probably not!

and what happens next fucking sucks! the thin bristles pierce the mouth and can get lodged in throats or digestive tracts, and even one single bristle can require expensive scans and surgery. a lot of US emergency rooms are not equipped to successfully remove bristles this fine and make victims schedule an appointment with a specialist, even if the earliest appointment with someone covered by insurance is weeks or months away.

and the longer it takes a victim to find a medical professional who can successfully remove even one single fucking accidentally consumed metal wire grill brush bristle, the more likely that injury will become severe or even life-threatening. sometimes victims do not realize they even ate a bristle until days later when they are in agony and a lot of damage has already been done.

if you ever think you could have maybe swallowed a metal wire grill brush bristle: GO TO THE EMERGENCY ROOM IMMEDIATELY BEFORE THE BRISTLE GETS LODGED EVEN DEEPER, GETS FURTHER DOWN YOUR DIGESTIVE TRACT, OR POSSIBLY CAUSES A MAJOR INFECTION!

Description: This recall involves the metal wire bristle grill brushes with plastic or wood handles measuring between 12 and 21 inches long, as described below. The following model numbers are included in this recall and can be found on the product packaging: 6277, 6278, 6463, 6464, 6493, and 6494. Only the model numbers listed below are part of this recall.

some emphasis mine. not all weber grill brushes are being recalled, and most definitely not all metal wire grill brushes in the US are being recalled. unfortunately, the model numbers are on the product packaging. meaning, if you (very reasonably!) threw the packaging away, you just have to try and guess when and where your grill brushes were purchased, and compare the images to see if yours is eligible for a free replacement. all recalled grill brushes have either the weber grill logo or weber logo name somewhere on the brush or handle. might be a bit faded depending on how much yours was used.

but if you have a grill, this is a good opportunity to carefully check or ideally just replace all of your fine metal wire grill brushes. if you need more convincing, check saferproducts.gov incident reports involving grill brushes, or the summaries of those reports provided at the bottom of this post under the cut.

alright here comes my (rune!'s) eternal struggle: transcribing a table of recall information to tumblr. for a much more readable format, check out the recall announcement.

I (rune!!) cannot upload all the images in this recall because it exceeds tumblr's maximum image limit on mobile, but the recalled grill brush information is in the same order as the photos at the top of this post, and the missing images are also the ones at the top of this post. these 6 recalled grill brushes are basically the long and short versions of 3 different grill brush styles: one with a plastic black handle and a red ring, one made of bamboo that also has a metal scraper, and one with an all-black plastic handle.

recalled weber plastic handle metal wire grill brushes sold between 2021 and 2026:

Model Number: 6277

Brush Description: 12 inch black plastic handle with red ring stamped with Weber grill logo

Distribution Dates: 2021-2026

Model Number: 6278

Brush Description: 18 inch black plastic handle with red ring stamped with weber grill logo

Distribution Dates: 2021-2026

the full view of 6277 is image #1 at the top of this post, 6278 is image #2. they share the same grill logo. the CPSC recall announcement resuses the 6277 close-up for the 6278, and then also, in an apparent mistake, uses the grill logo for the overall picture of the 6278. (hopefully fixed by the time you see it...?)

recalled weber bamboo handle metal wire grill brushes sold between 2011 and 2021:

Model Number: 6463

Brush Description: 12 inch bamboo handle with silver metal scraper on the back branded with the Weber logo name

Distribution Dates: 2011-2021

and the weber logo name looks like this:

Model Number: 6464

Brush Description: 18 inch bamboo handle with silver metal scraper on the back branded with Weber logo name

Distribution Dates: 2011-2021

and once again, the image above was used as the close-up for both brushes. 6463 is image #3, 6464 is image #4 at the top of this post.

recalled weber plastic handle metal wire grill brushes sold between 2013 and 2021:

Model Number: 6493

Brush Description: 21 inch black plastic handle with black ring stamped with Weber grill logo and metal binder with Weber grill logo

Distribution Dates: 2013-2021

and the close-ups of the grill logos here:

Model Number: 6494

Brush Description: 12 inch black plastic handle with black ring stamped with Weber grill logo

Distribution Dates: 2013-2021

the 6494/shorter brush only shares the first close-up, because it is too short to have a metal binder in the style of the 6493/longer brush despite being the same style of grill brush. 6493 is image #5, 6494 is image #6 at the top of this post.

Remedy: Consumers should immediately stop using the recalled grill brushes and contact Weber for a cold cleaning nylon bristle grill brush replacement. Consumers will be asked to discard the recalled grill brushes.

STOP using these. and possibly all metal wire grill brushes. weber is offering replacement nylon bristle grill brushes. in kind of a dick move/possible mistake, weber's contact information and how to get a replacement grill brush are not actually listed in this recall announcement. so I (rune!!!) tracked it down, for a quick detour about how to get a free replacement nylon grill brush:

weber.com has its own recall notice page, which is linked at the top of the homepage in a bright red banner. always like to see that. the recall notice page then links to this website, weberbrushrecall.com, for the recall of the grill brushes. to register for the recall, you do the following process:

Does your grill brush have one of the Weber logos seen in the image above? [Yes/No]

Select the photo that matches you Weber grill brush and click Register. Please confirm you are selecting the correct brush size.

then it takes you to a registration page where you fill out your address and an email and/or phone number for weber to keep in contact throughout this process. it asks you if your grill brush was purchased online or in store from ace, amazon, best buy, home depot, lowe's, target, tractor supply, weber, or somewhere else. and then it asks whether your grill brush was purchased in the past 12 months, 1-2 years ago, or longer than 2 years ago. if you bought it in a store, it was probably purchased within the year ranges listed in this post and on the recall announcement. you then check a box saying you promise to destroy your grill brush after you send in a photo and receive email confirmation from weber that your recall photo was accepted and a replacement nylon grill brush is on the way.

you must not chuck your recalled grill brush before you send weber the wiry felon's mugshot, if you want to receive the free replacement grill brush.

alright, back to the recall announcement! going to do this next bit out of order for reasons you will see in a second.

Sold At: The recalled grill brushes were sold online and in stores at Lowe's, Home Depot, Ace Hardware, and Target, and online at Amazon and Weber.com from 2011 through 2026 for between $10 and $17. The products have also been found on resale sites, such as eBay.com.

...and again, as was revealed during the incidentally explored registration process for a refund for the purpose of summarizing it for this post: these brushes were also sold at tractor supply, best buy, and "other". why is this not listed in the recall announcement?

Incidents/Injuries: Weber is aware of at least 38 reports and reviews where small wire bristles detached from the grill brushes, including four reports of consumers who swallowed metal bristles and sought medical treatment to remove the bristles from their digestive tract or throat.

weber is aware of at least 38 reports and reviews of these wire bristles detaching, including 4 reports of injuries requiring surgery. this is interesting wording, that "at least" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.

this danger is not unique to weber metal wire grill brushes. metal wire grill brushes from many different stores, websites, brands, manufacturers, importers etc have been named in unsafe product reports. wire bristles become lodged in food and then eventually in people's bodies, resulting in horrific injuries.

I (rune!!!!) went and checked saferproducts.gov for incident reports of metal bristles detaching from grill brushes. the list wound up being fairly graphic and also extremely long, so they are under the cut. so for most of you, this is where we part.

but for those of you ready to read about detailed injuries, including those from other dangerous models of metal wire grill brushes, here we fucking go. reminder: these are only successful, vetted reports that were submitted specifically to saferproducts.gov. they required a specific, detailed process to be accepted. these injuries are undoubtedly far more numerous than the number of reports.

and despite the MANY non-weber metal wire grill brushes named in these incident reports...none of the dangerous grill brushes described below have apparently been recalled, at least according to CPSC.gov, aside from the 6 weber grill brushes described above. weber's recalled metal wire grill brushes are not even the ones involved in the most numerous or gruesome injury reports summarized below the cut.

these summaries start out very brief and without many details, and then eventually I (rune!!!!!) started including more details about the injuries because...hey holy shit, I realized these details needed to be shared. at least once incident report was from food served at a restaurant. I am now of the opinion that metal wire grill brushes should either be banned or have far stricter safety regulations, everywhere in the world. these injuries get fucking nasty and I regret not including more comprehensive details earlier for all of them. sorry this is all over the place, these injury reports wound up hitting me hard. so I hope these summaries help protect at least one person who reads them. fffuuuuuuuuck

the following are all incident reports involving metal wire grill brush bristles dislodging from the brush. these reports were all submitted specifically to saferproducts.gov. summary includes manufacturer, name/model of grill brush, retailer, incident year, and increasingly detailed description of injuries. (search query: "grill brush" sorted by newest. there may be other relevant saferproducts reports not listed in these summaries due to variations in descriptions and product names):

char-broil brush hawg (lowe's, 2011), renkam metal products manufactory ltd deluxe grill cleaning tool (sam's club, 2011),

grill brush (bed bath & beyond, 2012, 78 year old injured in tooth and throat), the brinkmann corporation grill scrub brush (home depot, 2012, dislodged into a 5 year old's burger), L G sourcing inc master forge 3 in 1 grill brush (2012, 52 year old required major surgery for punctured ureter tube and torn bowel), lifetime brands farberware grill brush (unknown retailer, 2012, 48 year old required surgery days later for wire bristles embedded in intestines), weber-stephen products co's 18 inch grill brush and scraper 306422 (home depot, 2012, bristle became lodged in victim's mouth), weber grill brush (amazon, 2012, wire lodged in victim's mouth), char-broil's brush hawg steel grill cleaning brush (lowe's, 2012, 45 year old required surgery to remove wire bristle from intestine), L G sourcing inc's master forge 16 in 1 grill brush (lowe's, 2012, 30 year old required surgical removal from esophagus), mr. bar-b-q inc's wire bristle three point cleaning brush (grocery outlet, 2012, 62 year old injured in mouth), mr. bar-b-q inc's chef master grill brush (food services of america, 2012), L G sourcing inc's master forge 3 in 1 grill brush (lowe's, 2012, 67 year old injured in mouth), L G sourcing inc's master force (sic, presumably master forge) metal grill brush (lowe's, 2012), onward manufacturing company limiteds barbecue genius 15 inch 2 way grill brush (orchard supply hardward (sic??), 2012, 42 year old injured in tongue), LF LLC's master forge large grill brush (lowe's, 2012, 47 year old had multiple unsuccessful surgeries at different hospitals and as of incident report over $250,000 in medical bills with bristles still lodged in throat), backyard grill's grill cleaning brush (walmart, 2012, 59 year old required surgery for removal from small intestines days after not realizing he swallowed a bristle)

LF LLC's grill master brush (lowe's, 2013, 52 year old injured in mouth), mr. bar-b-q double header grill brush (unknown, 2013, 55 year old required surgery to remove bristle from throat), mr. bar-b-q's oversized triple action grill brush (bed bath and beyond, 2013, 46 year old had 2 unsuccessful surgeries from 2 different hospitals to remove bristles from throat, 3rd bristle removal surgery at another hospital was finally successful after it had perforated her esophagus)

fox run USA LLC kingsford grill cleaning brush (unknown store, 2014, 98 year old required surgery to remove bristle from throat), grill shop dual sided grill brush (menards, 2014, 38 year old required extensive scans and 2 surgeries before bristle removal from throat was successful), onward manufacturing company limiteds grill pro BBQ grill brush (bomgaars, 2014, 63 year old required 6 doctors and 6 months until surgery was successful at removing bristle in neck),

mr. bar-b-q double grill brush (grocery outlet, 2015, 50 year old had bristle pierce through intestine requiring emergency bowel resection to completely remove part of intestine), weber-stepen products LLC model 6463 weber steel grill brush (ace hardware, 2015)

the companion group's big head replacement grill brush head (amazon, 2017), the grill shop's grill brush (menards, 2017, 84 year old required surgery to remove 2 feet of intestines due to infection from one single dislodged bristle), grill marks tools for the outdoor cook BBQ grill brush (ace hardware, 2017, 66 year old fought for 2 months to get surgery to remove wire from tongue before a surgery was successful, this report has a plea to ban wire grill brushes in the US)

ocean state jobber inc dba ocean state job lot's roadhouse BBQ triple action grill brush (ocean state job lot, 2018, 58 year old got wire bristle lodged in tongue and throat, required a ton of scans, had 3 unsuccessful surgeries to remove the wire bristle. as of time of report, victim still had bristle lodged in tongue and throat and was no longer able to speak, swallow, or eat freely without severe pain. in report, victim was requesting information from the CPSC on the physician who successfully removed a wire bristle from the base of a patient's tongue in 2011. and also a plea to remove these products from the market),

mr. bar-b-q's replaceable grill brush (big lots!, 2019), onward manufacturing company limited's grill pro grill wire cleaning brush (walmart, 2019, 70 year old got bristle stuck in throat and tongue and "had to pull it thru my tongue to get it out"),

char-broil LLC's char-broil BBQ grill cleaning brush (lowe's, 2020, 61 year old ingested wire bristles), expert grills grill brush (walmart, 2020, 67 year old required surgery to remove bristle from throat),

nexgrill industries inc's nexgrill grill brush (lowe's, 2022, 70 year old had multiple unsuccessful surgeries to remove wires from throat and esophagus before surgical removal was successful),

birald's birald grill cleaning brush for grilling cookware & grill rotisseries (amazon, 2023, 37 year old injured when bristle became lodged in her gums),

kosciusko consulting inc's grillumaid BBQ grill brush and scraper, BBQ brush for grill cleaning - extra strong 3 in 1 safe wire bristles (amazon, 2025, 41 year old required the "safe wire bristles" to be surgically removed from lower throat), grill daddy grand platinum steam grill brush (amazon, 2024, victim nearly choked and pleads for a safety investigation about this type of product), weber-stephens products llc's weber grill brush model #6278 (home depot, 2025, 72 year old possibly ingested bristles), grill mark's wire grill brush (ace hardware, 2025)

...holy shitload of incident reports, batman. this post actually had to be written twice because the character limit for a block of text was exceeded, and then it failed to save on the mobile app, and deleted hours of text. but hopefully this helps raise some awareness about how fucking dangerous metal wire grill brushes are. just one single metal wire bristle in your food can possibly bankrupt you, uproot your life, disable you for life, and maybe even end your life.

please consider using anything other than a metal wire grill brush to clean your grill. your life, health, and happiness are worth so much more than all of this.

for more information about this recall, check the CSPC recall announcement.

thanks for reading (especially if you read all the incident report summaries, holy shit!!!), stay safe, and take care!

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