MES grates are way too heavy.......

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cmayna

Master of the Pit
Original poster
OTBS Member
★ Lifetime Premier ★
Jun 23, 2012
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1,697
SF Bay Area, CA
....for my type of smoking, so what do I do? Them stock racks are like tonnage in weight as compared to the meat I normally smoke which is fish, especially Salmon nuggets and jerky. The stock racks are also of the standard grate design which will not allow me to use since the nuggets and jerky would fall between the grate wires. I need the small square design so small foods pieces won't fall through.

The closest rack I could find on line, was 1-3/4" too short in width and about 5/8" too deep. Thus I had to twerk...er..tweak up the back side of each rack in order to shorten them a tad, similar to the stock MES grate design but a little more pronounced.

The width was way too short so I had to add support rails to fill the void.


Now these grate are ready to produce some Salmon nuggets in the next week or two.

Here's a before (bottom) and after (top) shot
8667427f67b93224c6fa093e9b256edb.jpg


One down, four to go. The four have already been tweaked, waiting for rail supports.
ea388337a2765584aa9be00f896d0772.jpg


Zap, Zap, Zap!
74b45b793e5265fdbd69eb67351636f0.jpg


8af2df8a6b69ac11c85275cb434d1c55.jpg


118d763a51423810576820c10d03da4e.jpg





Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
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....for my type of smoking, so what do I do? Them stock racks are like tonnage in weight as compared to the meat I normally smoke which is fish, especially Salmon nuggets and jerky. The stock racks are also of the standard grate design which will not allow me to use since the nuggets and jerky would fall between the grate wires. I need the small square design so small foods pieces won't fall through.

The closest rack I could find on line, was 1-3/4" too short in width and about 5/8" too deep. Thus I had to twerk...er..tweak up the back side of each rack in order to shorten them a tad, similar to the stock MES grate design but a little more pronounced.

The width was way too short so I had to add support rails to fill the void.


Now these grate are ready to produce some Salmon nuggets in the next week or two.

Here's a before (bottom) and after (top) shot
8667427f67b93224c6fa093e9b256edb.jpg


One down, four to go. The four have already been tweaked, waiting for rail supports.
ea388337a2765584aa9be00f896d0772.jpg


Zap, Zap, Zap!
74b45b793e5265fdbd69eb67351636f0.jpg


8af2df8a6b69ac11c85275cb434d1c55.jpg


118d763a51423810576820c10d03da4e.jpg





Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Those look great!  Do you have a press break for the bends?

-Kurt
 
Thanks Kurt and Al.  Kurt, all I did was to first break the weld loose on the two back corner vertical supports,giving me room,  then turn the grate upside down with the  to be bent area hanging over the front edge of my shop's table.  Clamp it down and with a big hammer and brass drift,  whamo!    I'll take a pic later today.
 
Great Idea, Craig!!!-----And Nice Job!!
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I hope this means some more big batches of Salmon Nuggets coming soon!!!
drool.gif


Bear
 
Bear,

Tsk! Tsk! Tsk!   Haven't you ever heard of SBSN?  (Super Bowl Salmon Nuggets).
yahoo.gif
 
 
Ok, but why not just use some of Todd's Q-MATZ?

http://www.amazenproducts.com/SearchResults.asp?Cat=46
A) That means I'd have to clean both the stock anchor weight racks plus the Q-Matz  when I get done.

B) The stock racks are way too heavy for when I carry 5 racks worth of Salmon pieces out to the smoker, I'm squishing the bottom racks contents. The weight of these new racks add very little to the total weight.

C) I don't like the artwork imprint the Q-Matz leave on fish as compared to the small squares (talkin about getting a little anal)
banana_smiley.gif


D) This project was way too much fun.
 
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.....oh and E)  My welder, Mr. Miggy was lonely.
 
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