Many recipes for custards and similar deserts like lemon curd suggest passing the completed custard through a "fine mesh strainer" to remove lumps. When looking up strainers and sifters I see a wide range of different mesh densities often characterized with a "mesh number" such as "60 Mesh" with higher numbers being smaller holes.
What would be an appropriate mesh number for a "fine mesh" strainer to smooth out custards?
At the moment I only have tea strainers and two different sized bowl shaped strainers with what I would consider "normal" density meshes.
Best Answer
From this website:
For custards and other desserts where you're making sure you don't have lumps, the lumps are most often pieces of egg that have scrambled because of the heat. A 60 mesh strainer has 0.0098 inch sqaures that material can get through, which I believe would be plently to catch any bits of egg.