I have expanded metal shelves (racks) in my smokehouse and there is 4 spaced for siting roasts sized meat in them. Pic below of what i have which is normal expanded metal sheets. I need to make more addition racks for making jerky. I got a new place this year to thin deer and plan to make a lot of jerky. I got three months to figure this out.
Anyone using and kind of sheet where I could fab my own with a smaller holes in it for jerky? The expanded metal would work, but the holes are a bit large.
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Hi rob grats on the deer hunting land I'm jealous!
I don't have a metal options I use to offer up BUT I do use these and love em:
I'm not suggesting u get this exact brand but you get the idea.
I have smoked both solid and more importantly GROUND jerky on them. The mats are great for all kinds of uses in the smoker to keep smaller pieces of food like wings, breast tenders, fish, meat loaves, or peppers etc. from falling through the MES racks.
Also they are dishwasher safe, flexible, easy to store, and make it easy to rotate racks WITHOUT having to physically move the racks if u just cant do it. I get a couple of baking sheets and pull the loaded mesh sheets onto the baking sheet then i can rotate them easily by slicing them back on!
I sometimes use them indoors with the oven AND I combo them up with my baskets to make moving large chunks of meat in and out of the smoker without tearing it up, see here:
Cleaning can suck a little bit but its a trade off. I just use a scrub brush and a little soap and warm water in the sink to knock off the chunks and thicker grease to save my dishwasher from clogging up when I throw them in the dish washer. They are flexible and easy to manuever in the dish washer too.
Again, this is not what you asked for but I figure I would throw it out there as an option you might have is cost is comparable or if you can get a bunch more use out of these mats :)
