Multiple Pizza Screen Tower Help

[John W]

Hey all! I'm a big fan of Kevin Taylor's BBQ Guru jerky webpage where he uses pizza screens to smoke several trays of jerky. It can be challenging though to juggle several screens at once though with rotating jerky around, and especially lifting the stack of trays out of the WSM.

I've been thinking about a way to connect about 10 trays each separated by 1 inch of space by attaching a 2-hole stainless steel mending plate to each tray with one bolt, and having a long length of threaded stainless steel bar go through the other hole on the plate to make pivoting system. I would have hex or wingnuts between each plate to provide an inch of space between each tray.

The problem is that I don't know where to find pure stainless steel plates, nuts/bots, and a long length of threaded rod. Home Depot / Lowe's only seem to carry galvanized and zinc treated steel. I've checked online but I don't really find any that specifically say that they aren't galvanized or zinc. Does anyone know of an online store that sells food safe stainless steel hardware as obscure as mending plates and long threaded rods, or does anyone have another idea for keeping these stacks of screens separated an inch apart while being easy to lift out? I've thought about steel wire too.

Thanks!

John

 

[Paul Pearson]

The local Ace or Tru Value stores in my area carry stainless hardware, you might try finding a mom & pop type hardware store and see what they have. If all else fails try Fastenal, grainger or someplace like that online.

 

[John Solak]

Both Lowes and Home Depot sell stainless steel hardware in my area.

 

[J Whitcomb]

McMaster Carr online

 

[Mike Leiter]

Lowes in my area carries more assortment of stainless in the pull out trays than HD does. I dont think they have stainless threaded rod though. McMaster has lots of items available....

 

[Chad Bman]

What temps are you looking at running at? Do some research and you'll find that low temps - zinc is perfectly fine. Do a good burn off and it'll gunk over anyway. While you're at it, the beloved SS we all use is actually more harmful when it comes of off gasses. Granted, that's at insane temps we'll never use in the WSM but still.

Like other guys said, the pull-out specialty drawers at HD/Lowes has all the nuts & bolts you're most likely looking for. The threaded rod - not so much. But if that's all you're using, I wouldn't even think twice about not using it.

 

[John W]

Thanks all! I'll keep an eye out. I'm smoking at lower temps anyway for jerky so it probably doesn't matter too much. I'm going to rethink the design though. I might be trying to make it too complicated.

 

[Rick Body]

Surprising that Lowes or HD doesn't have stainless steel in your area.

Do you have any boat/marine places? They usually have stainless steel. If you cant find what you need at McMaster, try West Marine.com

T

 

[Marc]

I just notched out (kerf of the table saw blade) some (3 pcs) 1x1 wood. Worked fine. At the low temps zinc, aluminum, or in my case just wood is all fine.

 

[John W]

Thanks! I'm getting less worried now since the temps will be low I did try the 1" wood blocks as spacers, and that worked, but I was having problems picking up the stacks of trays off of the grill quickly/steadily to avoid the cover being off of the smoker for too long.

I'm thinking now of running a length of about 9-gauge steel wire through the center of each tray with 1" aluminum/steel spacers in-between to make gaps for airflow. Then, tying off the wire underneath the bottom tray so I can just pull the whole tray tower off quickly to do any rotating.

 

[Mike Leiter]

Thanks! I'm getting less worried now since the temps will be low I did try the 1" wood blocks as spacers, and that worked, but I was having problems picking up the stacks of trays off of the grill quickly/steadily to avoid the cover being off of the smoker for too long.

I'm thinking now of running a length of about 9-gauge steel wire through the center of each tray with 1" aluminum/steel spacers in-between to make gaps for airflow. Then, tying off the wire underneath the bottom tray so I can just pull the whole tray tower off quickly to do any rotating.

You could always get the Fire wire skewers as they are stainless and loop them up through. They are a smaller gauge flexible wire that would work great for this. Just use blocks still between each with the wire going up through and you could fix the end in some way to stay put on the bottom. It would give you loops on the top end to lift with. When not smoking with the trays you could just use the fire wires for shishkabobs

Fire Wire Stainless Steel Flexible Grilling Skewer

There are other makes based on the same design that may be cheaper also..

 

[John W]

Those are nice, Mike! I have been looking for something like that, but only found the non-flexible type. I think I actually have this tower figured out now though and I'm going to try to assemble it this weekend. I'll be sure to post some pics

 

[John W]

Tower Complete

Here's the finished pizza screen tower. It's a little crude, but I think it will get the job done. The wood still needs some sanding as well. Instead of using stainless steel for the handle, I figured a dowel rod would be cheaper and easier. It's untreated red oak as well.

Here what I used for this project. All of the parts (except the pizza screens and #6 wingnuts) were available from Home Depot:

1 - 5/8" red oak dowel rod
1 - 1" thick / 3.5" wide untreated red oak board (about 36" long)
1 - 4" long 1/4" stainless steel carriage bolt
1 - 1/4" stainless steel wing nut
2 - #6 stainless steel machine screws
2 - #6 stainless steel wing nuts
15" aluminum pizza screens. I have 6 screens right now which will hold a lot of jerky, but I believe the 18" WSM will fit up to 10 or 11 when the lid is on.

1. I divided the 36" long board into 10 squares (3.5" x 3.5") -- there will be some wood left over for the base for later.

2. I measured the center point of each square (1.75") and drilled a 2" hole using a hole saw in each square.

3. I cut out each of the squares using a jig saw drill attachment since it was quicker/easier than anything else I had (no table saw here unfortunately).

4. with the wood that was left I measured the center point again and drilled a 5/8" hole in the middle, and two smaller holes for the 2 #6 machine screws about 3" from the 5/8" hole. (You can see a picture below next to the dowel rod).

5. I maneuvered the dowel rod into the 5/8" hole so it was flush on the bottom and drilled a 1/4" hole though the side of the board to which will later hold the 1/4" carriage bolt to prevent the dowel rod from coming out.

6. I drilled about a 9/16" hole into the middle of each aluminum pizza screen with a step drill bit. It wasn't pretty with the aluminum twisting a little so it wasn't exactly 9/16", but it just needed to be big enough to slide the screens on and off with ease.

7. I attached the base board (with the 5/8" hole and 2 #6 holes) to the underneath side of a pizza screen pushing the machine screws up through the bottom and attaching the wing nuts to keep the bottom tray in place. This prevents it from pushing up on the other trays when you set the tower on the smoker. I also pushed the 1/4" carriage bolt through the edge of the board, through the dowel rod in the hole, and out the other side, and attached the 1/4" wing nut.

8. I then made the tower by putting on one of the 3.5" square wood donuts (spacer) followed by another pizza screen, followed by another wood donut, etc.

9. I realized I forgot to trim the dowel rod to fit, so I cut it down (by trial an error mostly) to 17 7/8" and it fits perfectly inside the smoker after the tower is assembled with the lid on the WSM. To be honest though, I didn't try cutting the dowel rod to 18" exactly, but that may work as well.

There you have it. Each layer is separated by an 1" of airspace to get the smoke and heat flowing around the jerky. One issue I can see though is that some of the aluminum screens are little bowed in the middle after drilling, so you just need to flip the tray upside down and that seems to work. It'll be interesting to see how this works with all of the jerky on there, but if the weight is distributed evenly, I think it will work well. This should allow you to easily pull the trays in and out of the WSM and swap the tray order around on the tower without too much effort.

Thanks again to Kevin Taylor's jerky page for the pizza screen idea (http://tvwbb.com/showthread.php?18746-Jerky-on-the-WSM). They work brilliantly!