Outdoor Living & Lifestyles - Fire Pit Grate???

We have a 36" tractor tire rim we're using for a fire pit ring. We're looking for a grate to put on top of the ring to cook on.

I found a round grate for a reasonable price, but it says it's made of square steel which makes me think it's for the bottom of the pit to put logs on, especially since it has 5" legs.

Would something like this be okay to use to grill food on? If not, what is the name of the thing you grill food on?

I'd like to cook burgers and brats on this thing before winter hits!!

You can go to a local metal fabricator and have them cut a piece of flattened, expanded metal for you. It's cheap and makes a perfect grill grate.

My fire pit actually uses the same tractor rim's, I have 2 of them stacked togeather and welded. My cooking grate is actually a round grate from an old weber grill. They sell the grate as a replacement heres a link to it Weber Grills and Accessories (http://store.weber.com/items/?pid=1288) or you could possibly find one used. The grill mine came from was a 36" so the grate actually fits perfectly with no modifications at all

Thanks, Pilot and Twisted. Those are two great ideas. I'll poke around town for either or both.

I can smell the brats now....

Not a cooking surface (and who cooks on a fire pit, really?), but welding 7/8" rebar the length of the diameter of the wheel is an option. I would weld one about half way down to hold the wood off the ground, and allow either a weber or other cooking grid work for the top one, or the rebars if you are only using pots, etc. We only use ours as a gather around conversation piece on cool nights, not cooking too much.

Go to a nearby thrift store and get a couple of oven racks. Go the the building supply and get a piece of rebar (or angle iron) long enough to span the center of the fire pit. Balance the oven racks from the side to the center bar. Oven racks at St. Vinnie's used to be fifty cents each.

I used expanded metal for a pig cooker that lasted for years. It was over a half barrel, but I'm sure it would work as well over a fire pit.