Cleaning EGR pipe off the exhaust manifold

I recently cleaned my egr and noticed the pipe coming of the exhaust manifold was pretty clogged as well. Has anyone tried cleaning this? I was thinking I could use some copper wire to knock down the build up and then a long brush. I would try to shop vac some of the carbon build up out but probably will end up pushing some back into the manifold. There’s quite a few bends that might make it tricky.