Safety of open fire barbecue with galvanized mesh

A. Hi Dirk. You're dealing with both chromate and zinc. My personal opinion is you should have a hot fire in it at least once before you put food in it.

Luck & Regards,

A. Hi, David. If you are a manufacturer, you would want to nickel plate or ceramic coat, not galvanize, the components ... because zinc is not considered a food-safe surface, plus it is usually chromated, and chromate is toxic. So the following assumes that you are an individual building one grill for yourself --

Zinc is an essential micronutrient, not a cumulatively toxic metal like cadmium, mercury, or lead; but are you sure it is actually zinc galvanizing, not a piece of cadmium plated scrap? When you use things for purposes for which they weren't intended, you may have the situation that you don't really know what they are. Further, there usually are no research studies of such things, so you are not going to get facts, only an educated guess (although on rare occasion you can find a WHO or similar report if you search hard and if the practice is widespread in the 3rd world).

Most things are a matter of degree. It is not considered a idea to eat food off of a zinc surface, and I'd certainly be leery of it the first time something was cooked on it, but if it struck me as the practical way to build this one-off thing for myself, I'd probably get the fire and grill good and hot, then wire brush and detergent wash the grill after this initial exposure to the heat, then go with it. But we're speaking personal philosophy only -- I'm no medical authority.

A. Nobody can tell you, sight unseen, how safe a home project is. But OEMs sometimes use zinc plated and galvanized materials in components (but not grates) of grills and barbecues, and I personally don't know of any evidence to suggest that an untested paint will prove safer than zinc.

A. Hi, Glenn. We appended your inquiry to a very similar one which has already been answered. Yes, aluminum coated fencing would probably be preferable if available, and stainless steel would be perfect; but, if not, burning off the galvanizing would be sufficient for me personally.

Hi, Victor. I personally wouldn't worry about such minimal use of zinc. But again, I'm just the curator of this metal finishing site, certainly not an epidemiologist or medical authority :-)

Regards,

A. Hi, Lendon. If the supplier's lawyers or a government agency felt it was advisable to label this metal and to warn you of the dangers of welding, burning, or cutting it, sorry but it just isn't reasonable to expect a third party -- who doesn't even know exactly what it is -- to assure you that, not only are the labels wrong, but it's even okay to eat off of it; sorry, no can do :-)

Sorry, and Regards,

Hi, Arthur. I've repeatedly offered my personal opinion on this thread, and on dozens of similar threads. It's time for someone else to give their take on it, rather than me just offering ever finer, ever more subtle, nuances on what is just my individual personal opinion and personal philosophy of living :-)

Good luck and Regards,

A. Hi Jim. Countless people throw their aluminum beer cans in the outdoor wood camp fire and cook on it the next day, and I personally haven't yet heard of it being a problem.

Luck & Regards,

A. Hi Jose. The ash tray on my wood stove is galvanized metal. That's not the same thing, but about all I can say.

Regards,

A. Hi Tobias. I'm confused regarding what you think the material is. Galvanized duct work would be steel sheet metal with a coating of zinc on it. There is such a thing as aluminized metal, which is steel with a coating of aluminum on it, but it's less common and I doubt that the duct work was made out of it. Some ductwork is also made of aluminum instead of galvanized steel.

People often wrap their corn, potatoes, fish, and other foods in aluminum foil for grilling, so certainly there is no issue with aluminum. But as said above, it's a bad idea to use materials in food preparation that weren't intended for the purpose ... still, I don't really imagine this galvanized ductwork liner, covering a hole, did any harm to anyone. Zinc is an essential micronutrient, not a poison.

Although ANYthing is possible, food poisoning is just such a common thing at picnic/barbeques that it seems better to me to carefully focus on what was done with the food that may have led to it and should be avoided next time.

Regards,

Please Note>>

According to Wikipedia, Zinc IS poisonous if an excess amount is present in the human body...

Even though zinc is an essential requirement for a healthy body, excess zinc can be harmful, and cause zinc toxicity. Such toxicity levels have been seen to occur at ingestion of greater than 225 mg of Zinc. Excessive absorption of zinc can suppress copper and iron absorption.

Zinc toxicity .

Thank you, and God Bless - Safe & Happy grilling this summer everyone!

Yes, of course, Bartholemew. Paracelsus doubled down on that idea 500 years ago with "Poison is in everything, and no thing is without poison. The dosage makes it either a poison or a remedy.

Regards,

A. If you have any concerns about zinc, buy what surface you want to use at a farm supply place, like Fleet Farm or TSC; their galvanized steel products are usually "hot-dipped galvanized" which you can recognize by the "feathery" appearance to the coating (instead of a smooth surface) that only hot-dipped galvanized zinc has. It is easy (and can be either fun or dangerous) to remove the galvanizing with DILUTED Muriatic acid (add one part acid to 6-10 parts COLD water. Do not add the WATER TO the ACID. Do NOT use hot water. It will bubble like crazy (GOGGLES) and etch off the zinc but the bubbling slows way down when only the iron is left. The bubbles are hydrogen gas so no open flames or sparks. Been there, done that. Got the singed hair to show for it.
BTW: why mix the two that way? It CAN can very hot very fast if they mix too fast. Which do you want spraying up in your face? Hot water with some acid in it? Or hot acid with some water in it?

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A. Hi Raymond. Not to worry. Your question can sort of be compared to asking whether taking a baby aspirin is safe since we know that swallowing a bottleful of aspirin is dangerous. Zinc is an essential micronutrient, not a toxin. The "zinc problem" affects welders and others who heat large quantities of zinc to its vaporization point and then inhale the resulting clouds of fumes and suffer an overdose.

Regards,

A. Galvanized (zinc coated) steel is a problem only under specific circumstances, and the problem in a grill is if you've met those circumstances.

Yes, zinc is a micronutrient that your body does need in some quantity (and will ward off/kill viruses in your body in small quantities). The problem is not really short term contact with it (though the water coming off of tin roofs with zinc coatings will kill the grass it comes in contact with), and I ended up here trying to figure out if it's a problem using galvanized parts for grill burners.

The problem is that galvanizing gives off very toxic fumes if you get it hot enough, like when you weld it with an electric (MIG Or TIG) process. You get white, sweet smelling fumes and the zinc surface turns to a light white powder. Breathing in even a small amount of these fumes will get you pretty sick and in the hospital the next day with neurologic and gastrointestinal issues and could kill you. Supposedly drinking a lot of milk after exposure can help.

If you don't get it hot enough for the zinc to burn off the steel you shouldn't have any problems. Exposing it to a few hundred degrees like a wall or a baffle in a smoker is no big deal, and if you're really concerned about it anything that will outgas will likely do it the first time you heat it up (unless you at some later time get it glowing hot). Be aware that if you get it hot enough to burn of the zinc you need to get the powdery white residue off with a brush, and you're left with bare steel that will rust quickly. If you have other bits that you just want to get the stuff off the best/fastest is to just soak it in muriatic acid (you can get it at the hardware store for etching concrete and cleaning some things)

For the person worried about if he should go to the doctor to get checked out it could never hurt (*I'm not a doctor and don't take this as medical advice so don't sue me*) but if you were suffering from acute zinc poisoning you would have been acting weird enough or worse that you would have been taken to the hospital in an ambulance. I wouldn't worry about it a few days later if you're still feeling OK.

In my case, I want to build some burner parts for a custom propane burner out of galvanized steel (either galvanized conduit or pipe). Something that will get significantly hotter than most of the parts that you guys are talking about. I suspect that the parts will be OK but I'm not positive. I do know that cheaper grills come with "galvanized" burners, but I'm not positive if they are truly galvanized or if they're actually aluminized.

Aluminized steel is a thing, it's coated with a light coat of aluminum rather than zinc, typically it's nowhere near as heavy and it's hard to tell. In a lot of ways it looks like bare steel that stays somewhat bright rather than going rusty right away, something in between the look of steel and a really light galvanized coating. For the most part the only place I know of that it is used for sure is in non-stainless exhaust tubing/parts. It makes them last a little longer, you can burn right through it with a welder and is not toxic when welded over.

A. Hi Jonathan. You're repurposing an old fuel tank which was full of poison, without knowing what surface treatments it received and not knowing what they may do if heated as well, but you're worried about chicken wire giving off fumes when heated...

Actually the first problem with the chicken wire is that it's not considered a "food-safe" surface (a surface upon which it's safe to place food), whether heated or not. Please see if it is possible to get some stainless steel wire cloth; it's a better answer in all regards. Good luck.

Regards,

? Hi Hendri. I don't know who "they" are who is selling them, what parts are galvanized, nor what organization you feel should outlaw it, etc. But I personally would not put food directly on a BBQ grate in a public park regardless of what it was made of. I'm sure that drunken teenagers pee on them and worse.

Are you a consumer who bought one for home use or an engineer for a rival company or what? Please introduce yourself and the situation because abstract questions are rarely answered usefully :-(
Thanks.

Regards,

A. Hi Richard, we're starting to run in circles after twenty seven previous postings on this thread, but ...
When you use something for a purpose for which it was not intended we can almost never say it's "safe" because the designer never intended for it to be safe for this purpose, and we have no idea of his thought process in making design choices, and we're not even 100% sure what it is (You're concerned about the zinc, but are you sure it even is zinc? What is the post-treatment -- chromate, silicate, some new nano-coating, a clear coating, who knows?); plus, we have no governmental agency regulating it, and we have no epidemiologists studying it. Nobody can positively assure you it's safe. But if food is not in contact with it, and it never gets truly hot, it becomes a question of personal philosophy :-)
I personally would use it, but others might not.

Regards,

I am trying to repair my propane grill and found your thread on metals used by others, I learned ideas and my concerns addressed, thank you.