Homemade Sausage Making

Im using a couple grease screens I bought today to keep ash from getting into the smoke chamber of my cinder block smoker. I'm wondering if the screens can handle this? If they're only "rated" to a certain temp. only? The reason I ask is cause when I installed them today and test fired my smoker up to see how it worked with the screens I thought I smelled something a little off. Im not sure if just the "neweness" is burning off from the screens or what? I removed the plastic handles. Here are a couple pictures. The blue arrows is where the screens are.

Well the screens didnt work. After a few hours of smoking today I noticed my temperatures were staying lower than usual with more wood. What happened was the screen got clogged up. Makes me kind of wonder if my fire isnt burning the way it should. Take a look at this photo: