A recall that started with roughly 1.7 million grill brushes in early July has more than doubled in size. Conair has now pulled over 3.6 million Cuisinart-brand wire bristle grill brushes from the market after dozens of reports of the brushes shedding metal bristles into food, including three people who swallowed bristles and needed medical treatment to remove them. Anyone who owns one of the affected brushes is entitled to a full refund.
An Expansion Takes The Total Past 3.6 Million
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission announced the expanded recall on August 27, 2026, covering an additional 1,905,805 brushes on top of the 1,719,995 units Conair had already recalled that July. Combined, the total now stands at 3,625,800 wire bristle grill brushes and grill cleaning tools sold under the Cuisinart name. The expansion effectively covers every Cuisinart-branded wire bristle grill brush the CPSC is aware of, including models sold individually and as part of multi-piece grill accessory sets going back well over a decade.
The agency logged this action as recall number 26-717, and the CPSC’s recall notice lists Conair LLC of Stamford, Connecticut, as the importer of record, with the brushes themselves manufactured in China.
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54 Reports, Including Three People Who Needed Medical Care
The hazard behind both recalls is the same: small metal wire bristles can break off the brush head and stick to a grill grate or transfer directly onto food, creating a risk that someone unknowingly eats a bristle. According to the CPSC, Conair is aware of at least 54 reports and reviews describing bristles detaching from the brushes, and three of those reports involved a consumer who swallowed a bristle and needed medical treatment to have it removed from their digestive tract or throat. Ingested wire bristles are not a minor irritation; they can lodge in the throat or intestinal tract and, in some cases, require surgery to extract.
This is not the first time wire bristle grill brushes have drawn a large-scale recall this year. Earlier in 2026, the CPSC announced that Nexgrill recalled more than 10.2 million wire bristle grill brushes sold at Home Depot, tied to 68 reports and five people who needed medical treatment after swallowing bristles, and a separate action pulled more than 3.2 million Weber-brand brushes for the same hazard. Across just these three brands, more than 17 million wire bristle grill brushes have been recalled in 2026 alone. The recurring pattern has pushed some safety advocates to recommend coil-style or nylon-bristle grill brushes as a lower-risk alternative for anyone who wants to keep cleaning a grill with a brush at all.
Which Brushes Are Covered, And Where They Were Sold
The recalled brushes have black plastic, stainless steel, or wood handles and were sold under model numbers including CCB-100, CCB-4125, CCB-5014, CCB-6450, CCB-8012, CCB-4114, CCB-W2, CSBS-777, and more than a dozen additional numbers added in the August expansion, such as CGWM-024, CGWM-059, FCB-501, and CCB-3001. Many carry the word “Cuisinart” stamped directly on the handle, though two of the newly added models do not. Some brushes were also bundled into multi-piece sets, including the Premium Grill 10 Piece Set, the 13 Piece Wooden Handle Grill Tool Set, and the 20 Piece Deluxe Grill Set. The expanded recall adds Walmart to the list of retailers that carried the affected brushes, joining Burlington, TJ Maxx, Ross, Amazon, and Cuisinart.com; the original July recall notice did not include Walmart among the sellers, so anyone who bought a Cuisinart grill brush there specifically should check the expanded model list. In total, the brushes were sold from June 2009 through March 2026 for between $8 and $20.
How To Get A Full Refund, Or 20 Percent More In Store Credit
Owners are told to stop using the recalled brushes immediately and to discard them rather than return them to a store shelf. Conair is offering two remedy paths: a full cash refund, or a credit for use at Cuisinart.com worth the refund amount plus an extra 20 percent. Consumers can start either process by calling Conair toll-free at 888-520-1304, Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Eastern, or by going to the recall website and following the instructions there. There is no purchase receipt requirement mentioned in the recall notice for identifying a covered brush, since the model number stamped on the handle is generally enough to confirm eligibility.
Why This Keeps Happening With Grill Brushes
Wire bristle grill brushes have been a recurring target of CPSC action for years precisely because the failure mode is so hard for a shopper to spot before it happens: a bristle can work loose from ordinary scrubbing wear long before the brush looks obviously damaged. For grill owners weighing whether to keep using a wire brush at all, the practical lesson from this recall and the ones before it is to check any grill brush’s model number against a manufacturer’s recall list before the next cookout, rather than assuming a brush is safe simply because it still looks intact.
This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by a human editor. Figures are linked to their primary sources; where a claim could not be verified from the public record, we say so.
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