Great or not Grate.

[holehogg]

I was given this piece of food grade stainless steel woven mesh that is approximately 3 x 4 foot in size.
The person who gave it to me used a piece to make a "braai" grid for live fire grilling. He mentioned it is nowhere near as effective as a grate with bigger gaps.

I can get 2 grates to fit my kettle out of the piece. I'm definitely making one to suit my kettle with a cut out for loading charcoal. This I will use for smoking veg, especially cherry tomatoes. I currently lose a few every cook and I will be able to fit more on.




The space between the strands is +- 7mm and the strands I guess are 1.6 to 2mm thick.

Questions
Would the grate work for a low and slow meat cook or are the small openings not favourable for this method too, and if so why?

Any other ideas for the leftovers.

[HawkerXP]

Make a rack that you can place on your Weber grill grate for easy removal of smaller items like pork belly burnt ends.

[texastweeter]

I use a mesh like that for fish, veggies, beef jerky, even cheese.

[ItsAllGoneToTheDogs]

To me it's a stainless version of the grill mats lots of places sell... they are great for smoking or roasting nuts, or smaller items, or rolling items. The fiberglass or silicone ones are also great for fish, but I suspect a SS version would not work so well for that.

I would make a firepit screen with that, the grill mats are cheap and easy to clean and even easier to roll up and store.

[RonB]

I would be concerned about cleaning it - lots of "intersections". But since it was free, go ahead and make one that lies on top of the regular grate.

[RolfTaylor]

I have something like that I got on eBay. It claims to be stainless steel but is mostly teflon or something similar. Was easy to cut with kitchen scissors. Worked very well for blasphemy ribs.

[Dewesq55]

For the rest of us heathen, 7mm is a tad over ¼". I think that's a little small for a grill grate. I used ½" expanded metal for mine and I don't think I'd want them any smaller. I think a lot of pro smokers use ¾" expanded.