By Dylan Clay
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This post has been a really long time coming and actually took me 2 years to write. I’ve owned, used, and thrown away so many grill brushes in my time, it’s borderline ridiculous.
Even worse, not much innovation has really taken place in this space. In my opinion the “best grill brush” is whatever is cheapest.
The brushes that do exist don’t last and in many cases don’t work markedly better than the others; Especially when considering some of their higher price-points.
To Preface: A lot of other barbecue websites exist to monetize your click to make money. Meaning, they have no problems recommending inferior products. For the folks who read this article, I went ahead and bought a few of these so YOU don’t have to.
My goal with this article is to give you “the skinny” on grill brushes because several fancy marketing gimmicks and overpriced products exist in this category of barbecue.
These are my personal thoughts, opinions, and experiences – Your experiences may vary.
To reiterate, my personal opinion is that the best grill brush option is the cheapest. This is mainly because these brushes aren’t made to last.
Note: I bought every single product in this article (apart from brushes that my Brother and Grandmother gave me). No brand gave me anything and this post isn’t sponsored.
Also, unlike most articles you’ll read on this topic I’ve actually tested all of the brushes I’m about to talk about.
Honestly, any wire grill brush brand is likely going to be the cheapest option. Typically I’ll buy these at my local Home Depot or Runnings (farming and outdoor goods store).
They range in price from $6 – 11 and they’ll last around 4-12 months depending on how often you grill or smoke meat.
Usually I’ll go with whatever’s cheapest. For instance, the grill brush above is from Target and I paid $7.99 at the store
As of writing this article, it’s $5 online. – It’s no longer on Target’s website.
Similarly though, here’s a $0.97 grill brush found on Walmart’s website.
My Grandfather had this old wire brush in his Garage:
My Grandmother gave me it when he passed, so I use it.
This brush I typically use when the grill is cold as the shorter handle makes it hard to use when the grill is hot. If my grill is hot, I’ll either put on a welding glove or I’ll switch to my long handled grill brush.
Again though, all I care about is the price – that’s it; Wire bristled brushes are the cheapest. My Grandmother gave the above grill brush to Me for free and if it’s for free, it’s for me.
In terms of ability to clean your grill grates – bristle brushes tend to do a better job than most bristle-free brushes, which I outline below.
In this category specifically, I also completely avoid using plastic bristle brushes. For lack of a better word, they suck. Not to mention, the number of people I’ve seen burn their bristles is too many to count.
You’d think it’d be common sense that plastic melts, but I digress.
Aside from burning the bristles, they also perform significantly worse than wire bristles. I’m from New England and when it’s cold, these nylon plastic bristles are borderline useless.
A quick word on “loose bristles.”
The biggest reason people avoid using metal wire bristled brushes is because they claim they don’t want to get metal bristles in their food.
To that I say: What?
I’ve been grilling and smoking food for almost 16 years at this point. Never, and I mean ever, have I had wires from any of my brushes end up in my food.
Maybe these folks received a product that was broken or damaged and the bristles fell out?
I’m not entirely sure but I’ve quite literally never had this happen. When asking my Father, he said the same thing – never in his 45 years of grilling has he had that happen.
However, if that’s been an issue for you in the past, use a bristle free grill brush (below).
My Brother was actually the one who got me this grill brush. He also got it from Homeport, which I mentioned above.
I’d seen these around but never bought one because, again, all I care about is price; These are usually around $5-6 more than a wire bristled brush.
The biggest allure here is that it’s bristle free. So if you’re someone who is wary of bristles showing up in your food – bristle free brushes help avoid that problem.
In my opinion, these brushes tend to perform worse than bristle brushes. They generally do a good job of getting debris and carbon deposits off your grates but not as well as bristle brushes which sort of mold and contort to your grates.
I will say, if you’re someone who wants a grill brush they can “clean,” this is probably a good option. Mainly because it’s nearly impossible to get debris/carbon deposits out of wire bristles; Especially when it’s been caked on for several months.
The way this brush is made, you could easily soak the metal end in a solution of warm soapy water and you’d likely be able to remove debris.
With these style of brushes you’re essentially getting a product that cleans a bit worse than bristle-style brushes and costs a tad bit more.
When writing this article, I remembered that I also deep clean my grill grates with grill cleaning bricks once a year – you can read my deep cleaning article, by clicking here.
They’re pretty cheap at ~$8-12 for 3 bricks.
To me, they’re like a rebranded/repurposed pumice stone that folks might use to remove dead-skin from their feet.
The stone essentially conforms to the shape of your grill grates or whatever shape of “rail” your grates use. Meaning, you get more surface contact on your grates.
This is pictured below:
If I’m doing a deep clean – like in the photo above – these tend to work quite well. However, for regular cleaning, I’d much rather grab my wire bristled brush or bristle free brush and use that to quickly remove debris.
Aside from these grill cleaning bricks, for deep cleaning grill grates I’ve always used Bar Keeper’s Friend combined with a cheap sponge – this is pictured below:
As I hope is readily apparent from my deep cleaning photo above, these stones will leave a ton of residue from the stone itself. This is the main reason I’d likely never use these to clean my grill grates for routine cleaning.
It’s almost like you’re having to clean your grill grates and then you have to clean them again to remove the residue/dust. Granted, this is as simple as wiping the grates down with a wet paper towel or old rag.
The material is also quite abrasive.
Barbi-Q says their safe on a few different materials: “cast iron, enamel, and stainless steel.” However, I’d still be cautious.
For me – they’re cheap and work well. The amount of residue from using them is rather off-putting but they do work wonderfully for a deep clean.
I feel like this article wouldn’t be complete without me bringing up the Grill Rescue brush. I actually opted to buy this from Amazon just for the sake of this review.
Of the options out there, this is the one the more expensive grill brushes on the market. Typically most grill brushes fall in the range of ~$5-$20.
That’s what I’ve personally seen over the course of a decade of grilling and smoking meat.
I actually held off on posting this article solely because I wanted to test the brush for an extended period of time; I bought the Grill Rescue brush back in August 2022 – it’s now April 2023 (when I originally posted this article).
To start, I’d never suggest anyone spend $40-50 on a grill brush. That’s like 3-4 bags of charcoal or 3-4 bags of smoking pellets, with enough left over to buy a cheap grill brush for ~$5.
To be exact, I spent $54.95 on this Grill brush on August 22, 2022.
Note: This price can change often but that’s what I spent at the time of purchase.
It’s also important to note that they have an option without the scraper that’s cheaper.
To me, it doesn’t perform markedly better to warrant the higher price point; However, it does work as described by Grill Rescue.
There are a few contingencies that I think are worth discussing though:
Personally, I grill and smoke meat on my Weber kettle (charcoal grill). If I intend to smoke meat, the ambient temperature of my grill will never reach 400F that this brush notes for cleaning.
Smoking meat implies low and slow temperatures. Meaning, I’d essentially have to waste charcoal to clean my grill.
Realistically, after using this brush for 12 months, the only times I reached for it was when I used my Blackstone Flat top or my pellet grill; Both surfaces that get quite hot.
In terms of my Blackstone: A paper towel or old rag, a spatula and some water do the same thing. That’s how I’ve cleaned my Blackstone for years.
In terms of my pellet grill: I’d say it does do a decent job of removing debris. However, I wouldn’t say it’s markedly better than a regular wire-bristled grill brush at the same testing parameters (ie. 400F); I’ve directly compared them and the differences were negligible.
Granted, if you’re super concerned with bristles – this is bristle-free so that’s a bonus.
I personally don’t use Gas grills anymore but it’s likely the same story there too.
Apart from these qualms, the plastic handle material does feel high quality; It’s long and heavy so those are bonuses in my book.
Granted, the bamboo handles from Weber and the cheap plastic handles of a stereotypical wire bristled brush do just as well. The only thing that happens with wire bristled brushes is that they become gunked up with debris, grease, etc.
During winter in New England, it’s also not unrealistic for the cheap plastic handles to snap. Granted, I’d wager to say most folks aren’t like me trying to smoke ribs or brisket when it’s between -15F outside.
When that happens, you throw them out and get another for $6-11.
With this grill brush you have to buy a replacement head off of Amazon for ~$14.95 (the one without the scraper) or ~$19.95 (for the one with a scraper).
It’s also worth noting, the “tab” used to remove the head from the grill brush is somewhat hard to push. I’m 6’2″ and 240 lbs, with hands the size of catcher mitts and even I struggled to do so.
Maybe I’m doing it wrong – which is a strong possibility.
I’m specifically referring to these tabs:
Again, your experiences may entirely vary from mine. If you’re someone who only grills things like steak, hot dogs, hamburgers, fish, etc. this brush could be for you.
Now that I’ve owned the brush for 12 month I’d say it definitely works based on how they describe it. ie. pre-heat to 400F, dunk in water, and then clean your grates.
Taking out a bowl of water isn’t super cumbersome in the grand scheme of things and it does work as described.
Again, in my opinion, all that matters is the price.
Unlike most articles that will go on and on with nuanced explanations of various features like:
In the grand scheme of things, for what exists on the market, these features don’t really tend to matter much and won’t have a significant enough impact with respect to cleaning grill grates.
All these fancy marketing terms/gimmicks do is increase the price of the product – that’s it.
