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A comment on Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ brushes. Parent comment

Re:Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ br... by dguaraglia on Thursday September 01, 2016 @08:26PM (#12409868)
The Argentinian trick is basically:

1. let the grill get hot 2. rub with something to clean old grit 3. rub again with a chunk of fat (from the meat) for flavor

The "something" in step #2 has varied over the years. Back in the day, my grandpa used to use old newspapers... which of course we know today it's not such a great idea, heh. Onions, half a potato, a corn stalk, even a chunk of brick will do the trick. You just want to make sure you don't have old chunks of stuff clinging from the grill.

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Re:Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ br... by nikatwork on Thursday September 01, 2016 @09:00PM (#12410029)
> old newspapers... which of course we know today it's not such a great idea, heh

Why is it a bad idea? The newspaper thing is common in Oz, and a quick Google turned up nothing.

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Re:Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ br... by dguaraglia on Thursday September 01, 2016 @09:22PM (#12410129)
What mattashii said: newspaper ink has (or at least used to have) lots of lead. I'm not sure how bad it is, but I'd imagine that long-term you might want to avoid it. Specially when something as easy to find as a potato or a bunch of leaves will do the same job without the risk :)
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Re:Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ br... by aaron695 on Thursday September 01, 2016 @09:42PM (#12410223)
> but I'd imagine that long-term you might want to avoid it.

It's safe now. People use it for compost all the time.

The real danger from a BBQ is smoke.

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Re:Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ br... by wavefunction on Friday September 02, 2016 @01:42AM (#12411083)
The whole point of barbecue is indirect cooking with smoke.

Unless y'all mean grilling when you say BBQ.

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Re:Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ br... by davegardner on Friday September 02, 2016 @03:00AM (#12411396)
That's just one of the many words that have different meanings in different countries. We Australians take our barbecueing very seriously and it rarely involves indirect cooking. :-) The most common form of barbecueing here involves cooking on a flat hotplate over direct heat.
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Re:Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ br... by afarrell on Friday September 02, 2016 @11:00AM (#12413460)
The tragic thing about this is that it prevents people in places like the northeastern US from realising that the phenomenon of real BBQ exists. I know that until met my wife at age 23, I had never even seen actual slow-cooked collagen-has-turned-to-gelatin BBQ.

This isn't an instance of the Scotsman fallacy, it is a genuine category error.

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Re:Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ br... by dreamcompiler on Friday September 02, 2016 @02:37PM (#12415192)
Exactly. I'm originally from Texas, where they have a pretty serious idea about what the label "BBQ" means. And it absolutely does not mean grilling burgers over charcoal.
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Re:Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ br... by nommm-nommm on Friday September 02, 2016 @06:13PM (#12416649)
I remember on one of those restaurant impossible/kitchen nightmare type shows where the restaurant was a BBQ place.

Host: do you know BBQ actually is?

Restaurant owner: the sauce?

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Re:Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ br... by afarrell on Friday September 02, 2016 @06:42PM (#12416787)
Right. My wife grew up in Houston.
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Re:Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ br... by nazgul17 on Friday September 02, 2016 @05:32AM (#12411894)
I noticed this difference when I moved in Australia a couple of years ago. My first guess would be that hot plates are safer than fires from a wild fire point of view (which are quite a concern in Australia), and this is now engrained in the culture. However, I could be wrong and it has always been like this. Any thoughts?
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Re:Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ br... by stevenwiles on Friday September 02, 2016 @04:20PM (#12415984)
Then you Australians aren't actually barbecuing, are you? ;)
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Re:Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ br... by riffraff on Friday September 02, 2016 @02:51AM (#12411354)
is this for real ? I've always meant grilling and assumed anyone else meant the same :(

EDIT: might be a linguistic issue, wikipedia has different meanings of BBQ in different languages.

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Re:Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ br... by afarrell on Friday September 02, 2016 @10:47AM (#12413362)
Yea, if you hear "BBQ" and think "grilling", then you might be missing out on the phenomenon that is real southern BBQ, which is a significantly different culinary phenomenon.

Growing up in the northeast US, I didn't learn about the existence of BBQ until I was 23.

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Re:Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ br... by jeremy7600 on Friday September 02, 2016 @02:52PM (#12415301)
Sadly this was the case for me until Dinosaur BBQ made their way into the local scene.

Now I smoke my own pork shoulders, ribs and chicken. And its much cheaper this way :)

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Re:Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ br... by networked on Friday September 02, 2016 @01:35PM (#12414709)
A former colleague of mine, a man in his seventies, told us a story from when he served in the Soviet army as a young man. He served with a guy who used to wipe his individual plate and utensils with the newspaper they got. Others warned him about the lead but he dismissed the warnings. After a while, he ended up with lead poisoning.

I don't think I heard how long it took for him to get it or how severe it was.

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Re:Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ br... by 0xdeadbeefbabe on Friday September 02, 2016 @03:21PM (#12415548)
Could have been ammo related too.
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Re:Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ br... by networked on Friday September 02, 2016 @04:20PM (#12415985)
Quite possible! I understand that they thought the lead in the newspaper ink was the culprit because nobody else in their unit did the same and nobody else got lead poisoning, but obviously, it could have been coincidental. I've tried researching just how much lead one could consume this way but never found anything conclusive.
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Re:Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ br... by gadders on Friday September 02, 2016 @03:59AM (#12411613)
I believe in the UK the old ink that came off on your hands was made from soot and old engine oil. That's why you see people in PG Wodehouse and Downton Abbey getting their newspapers ironed - so it doesn't rub off on your hands.
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Re:Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ br... by Turing_Machine on Saturday September 03, 2016 @01:38PM (#12420136)
I would guess that the old-school lead type probably also had some bearing on that. Modern press plates are usually aluminum (or sometimes even polymers).
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Re:Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ br... by mattashii on Thursday September 01, 2016 @09:15PM (#12410093)
The ink in newspapers is often 'not good' to 'bad' for your health, which makes rubbing it onto your cookwares a slightly dubious choice.
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Re:Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ br... by ageofwant on Thursday September 01, 2016 @10:02PM (#12410302)
That used to be true, these days most newspaper inks are soy based, so its probably safe.
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Re:Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ br... by dguaraglia on Thursday September 01, 2016 @10:23PM (#12410391)
Gotta say, nothing beats the smell of burning newspaper when you first start making a barbecue. I feel better about the ink being soy based now.
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Re:Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ br... by nazgul17 on Friday September 02, 2016 @05:34AM (#12411899)
Not even bacon drops falling on the embers?
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Re:Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ br... by yeowMeng on Thursday September 01, 2016 @10:16PM (#12410365)
But metaphorically, do you want the ink of news running through your blood... Maybe!
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Re:Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ br... by croon on Friday September 02, 2016 @04:42AM (#12411761)
My favorite vector for consuming the news!
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Re:Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ br... by TeMPOraL on Friday September 02, 2016 @05:17AM (#12411861)
Why use paper as a moderator? I go with direct ink IV, to cut out the middleman.
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Re:Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ br... by hiddenkrypt on Friday September 02, 2016 @10:50AM (#12413383)
Ah, so this is why print is dying as a medium.
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Re:Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ br... by 0xdeadbeefbabe on Friday September 02, 2016 @03:23PM (#12415563)
I heard if you eat enough you will start to lean to the left.
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Re:Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ br... by tmaly on Thursday September 01, 2016 @10:55PM (#12410506)
what do you do about rust? The chrome coating on my grill comes off and the iron underneath rusts. The wire bristle was the only thing working.
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Re:Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ br... by dguaraglia on Friday September 02, 2016 @02:28AM (#12411254)
Yup, what everyone else said: rust is fine. At least it's preferable to chunks of chrome coating :)

Argentine grills are not coated. If you want to keep them from rusting, you just grease them a bit with the remains of the meat (you usually don't even need to do that) and clean them up next time around. If you are really concerned about the rust, you can always coat the grill with vegetable oil (just take a paper napkin, soak it in vegetable oil and lightly rub the grill with it.)

BTW, the biggest unrelated tip: when you are seasoning meat, use kosher salt instead of fine salt. It works much better!

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Re:Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ br... by tmaly on Friday September 02, 2016 @10:10AM (#12413133)
I use a coarse sea salt that is a little larger than kosher salt. It works out better with fish and meat.
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Re:Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ br... by sailfast on Friday September 02, 2016 @11:28AM (#12413667)
True, but is a lot more costly so you may want to save the fancy stuff for at-table seasoning instead of pre-prep!

http://www.seriouseats.com/2013/03/ask-the-food-lab-do-i-nee...

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Re:Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ br... by CPLX on Saturday September 03, 2016 @12:22PM (#12419764)
Use Maldon you heathens
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Re:Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ br... by dugite-code on Friday September 02, 2016 @01:08AM (#12410974)
you "treat" the metal much like you would a cast iron skillet.

After using, clean the grill, rub a thin coat of oil (I use canola different oils provide different seal quantity) then heat to smoking point. Wipe down and repeat a few times. This will coat the metal.

Most importantly DON'T use detergents it'll ruin the seal

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Re:Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ br... by glormph on Friday September 02, 2016 @06:31AM (#12412078)
Not sure if you mean this, but the detergent thing is called a myth here: http://www.seriouseats.com/2014/11/the-truth-about-cast-iron...

Happy washing-upping!

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Re:Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ br... by tmaly on Friday September 02, 2016 @10:11AM (#12413137)
It is always an after thought, you finish cooking and the grill is super hot from the charcoal. Its late at night, you want to eat and relax. By the time the grill cools, you are sound asleep.
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Re:Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ br... by alistairSH on Friday September 02, 2016 @01:50PM (#12414818)
Buy a grill with a cast-iron grate. Then, you season it with oil, just as you would a cast-iron pan/dutch oven.
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Re:Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ br... by wavefunction on Friday September 02, 2016 @01:40AM (#12411078)
Well there's your problem, iron is fine, it's the iron oxide you want to avoid.
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Re:Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ br... by kijin on Friday September 02, 2016 @03:27AM (#12411488)
Iron oxide isn't particularly bad for your health, either. Your steak is already filled with rusted iron. Your body is filled with rusted iron.

Chrome, on the other hand... that shit is nasty.

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Re:Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ br... by fnj on Friday September 02, 2016 @05:41AM (#12411916)
Actually trivalent chromium is an essential nutrient (trace amounts). Hexavalent chromium is the "bad" chromium. Chromium metal is not considered a health hazard.

Chromium salts (chromates) can cause allergic skin reactions.

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