The standard shelving I used to build an interior shelf worked great, but all of these at the Home Depot's/etc. were vinyl coated and I figured that was not going to work well INSIDE the grill. And I looked at a variety of actual add-on BBQ racks, but none of these were wide enough.
However, while shopping at SOMEPLACEPLACEPLACE, I came across some 36" X 12" shelving built by Schulte that seemed like just what I would need. The metal felt noticeably thicker/stiffer ... and the folks at the store told me the covering was a "baked on epoxy." BTW, I did call Schulte (their web site is http://www.schultestorage.com/) and they said their stuff was not warrented for high temperature applications. BTW, this was $16.95, so similar price as ordering from Grand Hall ... so no great savings there unfortunately.
In the meantime, I had "fitted" this shelving to the grill and it was a VERY GOOD fit ... so I was excited to make it happen. Figuring that it was not wise to have melted epoxy/whatever on my food, I had to find out if this shelf/grid would work ... but the only approach I could think of would be destructive testing.
My first through was to throw it in the oven and firing up the self-cleaning cycle ... but it would not fit. So after cutting the shelf/grid, I put it DIRECTLY on the grill and fired it up on HIGH for about 30 minutes. Unfortunately, it was not high-temperature epoxy, as there was some melting/vaporizing - see pictures below. So I put it back in for about 45 minutes this time ... figuring that was by far the most extreme situation it would ever be in and anything that was going to melt/vaporize would be taken care of by then. This really did a number on it, and except for the edges, it was down to bare metal. Note that normally, the shelf is elevated, so the temperatures should not be as extreme. I do kinda wonder how things would have turned out if I had done the same with the vinyl-coated shelving from Home Depot?!?
The shelf fits VERY well and is quite stable with some minor interference when you open/close the grill. It also comes off easily, as you may not be using this most of the time ... plus it kinda gets in the way if you are flipping a buncha stuff. That is the one trade-off ... but unavoidable if you want to add a large amount of extra upper cooking/warming surface. We'll see how this works in the months to come ... it IS a bit large; and I think about 9" (instead of 12") would have been about perfect; but half of the 18" shelf would not work in terms of resting solidly on the grill.
It has a slight downward slant as shown, but there is not much one can do about this since the back is (basically) rests on the infrared burner. And since the front rests on the bowl, it is actually nicely balanced front/back ... and the middle bar sitting in the indentation of the bowl adds to this stability. Finally, having the wires outside the bowl on both sides means it won't move left/right. However, to remove, just pick it up ... and placing it back in is a breeze.
BTW, I have gotten some Email/suggestions that to prevent rust, one can paint the grid, using high temperature automotive engine paint. So I went out, bought a can of bright orange (so I could see it well) *1200* degree auto-paint ... applied several coats, and then fired the grill up on full-blast for about 30 minutes. Most of the paint went away, so I can not recommend this approach.
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| 36" X 18" (cut in half probably wouldn't work) and 36" X 12" shelves | Closeup of Schulte Tag |
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