Conair’s recall of Cuisinart wire-bristle grill brushes grew to 3,625,800 units after the company added 1,905,805 brushes to the 1,719,995 it had recalled in July. The Consumer Product Safety Commission’s August 27 notice says loose metal bristles can remain on a grill or food and create a risk of serious internal injury. It records three reports of consumers swallowing bristles and seeking medical treatment to have them removed from the throat or digestive tract.
The scale matters because the expanded notice reaches far beyond a single model. The CPSC says all Cuisinart wire-bristle grill brushes are included, including products sold individually, in sets, and in some cases before 2020. Conair knows of at least 54 reports or reviews involving bristles detaching from the brushes.
Detached wire can stay on the grill or travel with food
The hazard is not a hot handle or an ordinary cleaning scrape. Small metal wires can break free, cling to a cooking grate, and then end up in food. The CPSC says that can cause serious internal injuries requiring surgery. The agency’s wording is careful: it identifies an ingestion hazard, not a guarantee that every brush will shed bristles or every detached bristle will be swallowed.
Three medical-treatment reports were the concrete escalation described in the recall. The underlying concern is that a thin piece of wire is hard to spot once it has embedded in food or fallen between grate bars. A brush can look usable from a distance while one of its bristle clusters has already begun to loosen.
Conair’s report covers metal wire-bristle brushes, not every grilling tool in a kitchen drawer. The brand name and model number are the reliable checks. Some covered handles are stamped Cuisinart; the CPSC notes exceptions for models FCB-501 and CCB-395, where the handle is not stamped, so packaging and the model list remain important.
The expansion takes the total above 3.6 million brushes
The new 1,905,805-unit addition nearly doubled the original July count. The total is 3,625,800 brushes. The expanded list includes models such as CGWM-024, CGWM-059, FCB-501, CGS-W18, CCB-134, CGWM-061, CB-395, CCB-3001, CGWM-077, CGWM-058, CCB-012/021, CGWM-060 and FBH-51, alongside the models named in the earlier recall.
The CPSC expansion notice supplies the model list, pictures and remedy. Conair directs owners to its recall portal; the Cuisinart recall page is a second brand-owned reference. Consumers can also consult Recalls.gov or file a product-hazard report through SaferProducts.gov.
Older products are part of the reason a broad recall can be harder to act on than a recent one. Some of the listed brushes were distributed as early as 2009; others were sold in grill-tool sets. The CPSC says additional Cuisinart wire-bristle brushes sold individually and in sets before 2020 are included as well.
The products were sold at Walmart, Burlington, TJ Maxx and Ross, plus online through Amazon and Cuisinart.com, from June 2009 through March 2026. Listed retail prices were $8 to $20. Those details explain why an affected brush may be sitting in a shed, trailer or second kitchen long after its packaging disappeared.
Conair’s remedy asks owners to stop using and discard the brush
The CPSC directs consumers to stop using recalled brushes immediately. Conair offers a full refund, or a Cuisinart.com credit equal to a full refund plus 20% of the cash-refund amount. Owners are asked to discard the recalled brush rather than keep it for a different cleaning job.
The recall contact number is 888-520-1304, available weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Eastern time. Conair also directs consumers to recallrtr.com/grillbrushes and the product-recall section of Cuisinart’s website. The manufacturer is Conair LLC of Stamford, Connecticut; the CPSC says the brushes were made in China.
Saving a model number or taking a photo before disposal can help an owner match the product to the official record. It also avoids relying on social-media lists that may omit the later expansion. Recall number 26-717 is the CPSC’s current identifying record for this action.
A larger recall does not make every grill brush interchangeable
Wire-bristle brushes are a familiar category, but the current action is brand-specific. A person with a Cuisinart brush should compare it against the CPSC’s photos and model list; a person with another brand should not assume that this notice either clears or recalls that tool. The distinction keeps the response tied to evidence instead of a vague fear of every metal brush.
For the covered Cuisinart products, however, the record is unusually direct: a 3,625,800-brush recall, 54 detachment reports or reviews, and three people who sought medical treatment after swallowing bristles. That is enough to make the old brush at the back of a grill cabinet worth checking before the next cookout.
The recall does not turn every grill-cleaning device into a prohibited product. It identifies a particular family of Cuisinart wire-bristle brushes and a documented failure path: loose metal can enter food. Matching the official model list, then discarding a covered brush through the stated refund process, keeps the response tied to the evidence the CPSC has published.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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