Farmhouse Cheddar Pictorial

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Did my first cheese today, right now it's sitting in my sink with buckets, cans, and containers of screws on it to make around 40 lbs or so squishing it in the cheese mold.

I noticed you said in the OP that you pressed it for 12 hours, then flipped it and pressed again for 12 more hours. My instructions only say 12 hours at around 45 lbs (Mad Millie cheese kit). Does the extra 12 hours you used make it drier? I am going to do this as my kit's instructions say to do it, but was wondering what the extra pressing time would do to it?

Thanks!
 
Keep in mind that the weight of the cheese and the style of the press determine the actual weight needed to form a particular cheese AFAIK.
I found out the hard way with my press and doing Gouda that called for a final weight of 40 pounds was for a 5 pound cheese and
a larger mold than I was doing. I did a 2 pound Gouda and used a smaller diameter mold. The cheese turned out drier than a Gouda should be.
 
Found this for you guys who wanted to MAKE a cheese press:

http://www.fiascofarm.com/dairy/cheesepress.html

We did one similar to this though replaced the legs with some half inch by 2 ft pvc pipes and these little stoppers for them that we found at Home Depot which causes the base to sit about 2 inches up. We did that so we could then drill a lot of holes in the bottom board then placing the whole thing in a baking sheet when we use it allowing the press to drain whey directly out of it which has worked out nicely.
 
I ended up using this recipe along with Ricki Carrol's page for ricotta. I figured I may as well use the hour the cheddar was draining for something useful like making 1/4 cup of ricotta from the gallon of leftover whey...

What a waste of time.

Didn't really make curds, but it still tastes like ricotta. I may have needed to add more or less citric acid, or maybe just add some more milk to get more cheese at the end. The seems like cheating somehow.

Almost time to add the last set of weights (50 lbs.) and then off to bed so I am not ornery and tired for "shopping with the wife day" in GR. I need to make it a good time, not even more painful. Maybe she will take me to Founders or one of the many other breweries if I'm good.
 
Damn, what a shame. This is the problem with hosting files somewhere other than Homebrew talk. Now this thread is crippled a little bit. Would be nice to have a cached copy.
 
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