Walmart is pulling about 4,477,655 Expert Grill wire-bristle grill brushes, roughly 4.48 million in all, after the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission recorded that the metal bristles can detach, stick to the grill or to food, and be swallowed. The brushes sold at Walmart stores and online for between $1 and $28 over more than five years, and they are probably hanging on a lot of patio railings right now.
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The recall was announced on October 1, 2026, and carries CPSC recall number 27010. No injuries had been reported when it was posted, which makes it a pre-emptive pull of a product whose hazard has been understood in emergency rooms for more than a decade.
Five Expert Grill models inside recall 27010
The CPSC recall notice covers brushes with black plastic or stainless-steel handles, some of them bundled with a metal scraper. It lists five model numbers, and they are printed on the packaging or on a sticker or tag attached to the brush: EX5607031616002, a 16-inch steel fiber scrub brush and scraper; EX5607031616003, a handheld steel fiber scrub brush with an ergonomic handle; XG1310700206, a 21-inch three-head brush with stainless steel bristles; XG1136178597003, a 17.7-inch long-handle brush with scraper; and XG1410700124, a ten-piece stainless steel grilling tool set.
The sale windows differ by model. The long-handle brush has been on shelves longest, since January 2021, the three-head brush since January 2022, and the grilling set since December 2023, while the two steel fiber brushes began selling in January 2025. All five stayed on sale until August 2026, which is why the population adds up to roughly 4.48 million units.
Walmart, Inc. of Bentonville, Arkansas, is listed as the importer, and the notice gives China as the country of manufacture without naming the factory. That arrangement is common for store-brand goods, and it explains why the recall is announced under the retailer’s name rather than a manufacturer’s. The federal record is also kept in CPSC’s public SaferProducts recall data feed, where entry 27010 shows the same unit count and price band.
How a wire bristle ends up in a hamburger
A grill brush works by dragging stiff metal wire across hot grates, and the wire is thin, dark and close to the color of a charred rack. A bristle that breaks loose can stay in the grate or the brush, then embed in the next piece of grilled meat without anyone seeing it, and the first sign is a swallowed piece of metal rather than a visible fault.
CPSC says that if swallowed, the bristles can cause serious internal injuries that may require surgery. The hazard has real documentation behind it: a 2012 report in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report described six patients treated at one Providence, Rhode Island, hospital system between March 2011 and June 2012 for wire bristles from grill-cleaning brushes. Three had punctures of the neck or throat that caused severe pain on swallowing and needed laryngoscopic removal. The other three had abdominal injuries, including bristles lodged next to the small intestine and in the sigmoid colon, and one intestinal perforation that required emergency surgery. All six recovered.
A separate count came from Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery in 2016, where T. P. Baugh, J. B. Hadley and C. W. D. Chang used consumer injury databases to estimate 1,698 emergency room visits for wire-bristle grill brush injuries between 2002 and 2014. Most were in the mouth, throat and tonsils, and some needed surgery. The authors cautioned that the true total may be higher because urgent care and other outpatient cases were not counted. David Chang, an associate professor of otolaryngology at the University of Missouri School of Medicine, said: “One little bristle unrecognized could get lodged in various areas of the body.”
The mechanism matters for how owners should think about their own brush. Wear is not always visible, a brush that looks intact can shed bristles on the next use, and the injury happens at the dinner table rather than at the grill. That is the reason the instruction is to stop using the brush at once instead of inspecting it first.
Refunds, credits and the Walmart contact line
Owners are told to stop using the brushes immediately. Walmart is offering a full refund or a credit usable at any Walmart store or on Walmart.com. The brush can be returned to a store or discarded, so no receipt chase is described in the notice, though anyone planning to throw one away may want to confirm the model number against the five above first.
Walmart’s recall line is 800-925-6278, staffed from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Central Time, Monday through Friday. The company also runs a Walmart product recalls page, and the notice points to the help section of walmart.com as a second route. Shoppers who bought a bundled grilling set should check the tool kit as well as the loose brush, because model XG1410700124 is a ten-piece set rather than a single brush.
Anyone who has already swallowed a bristle, or who has unexplained throat pain or abdominal pain after eating grilled food, should treat it as a medical question first and a recall question second. The cases above involved throat pain on swallowing and abdominal injuries, so a medical visit is the right first call.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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