Sausage stuffer = cheese press?

To the dismay of my lovely wife, I'm contemplating diving into trying my hand at making cheese. Getting way ahead of myself as I do some reading, I was giving some thought to a cheese press. I have a couple of old Enterprise, hand crank sausage stuffers, and I'm thinking to myself that these could be put into duty as cheese presses. I'd love to hear from anyone out there who either agrees with me, thinks I'm a total dolt, or anything in between....

My stuffer looks like this:



Thanks!!

As I read up more on cheese presses, I may end up answering my own question.... I think I have come up with a couple of flaws. (1) It will be difficult or impossible to really know what pressure I am putting on the cheese with this set up (and, is it me, or do all screw presses have the issue of keeping the pressure constant as the cheese drains?) (2) It will be challenging to remove the cheese from the press for flipping as required (this could be overcome, but likely to be more trouble than it's worth.)

I'd still love any input anyone here has if they have done it, know someone who has done it, or from experience have some insight on how it might work out.

Thanks!

Rich

I have that exact same stuffer in a 6 qt. version. I have used it for pressing fruit (mainly grapes and apples) as well as sausage stuffing. what a great piece of machinery!

Do you have the inside basket that looks/acts like a colander? It is the cylindrical basket with the round cast iron bottom pictured here:



The basket also comes with a smaller diameter pressing disc to fit inside the basket.

Whenever I press fruit, I use that insert and put the fruit in a mesh bag inside the basket (a grain bag from LHBS works great). When I'm done pressing, the bag lifts right out and the fruit is mashed into a nice big puck. To my way of thinking, it would be the same as using cheese cloth for pressing the cheese wheel. Should work great for that. I would even use the mesh bag instead of cheese cloth for the job.

All of this gives me an idea...
I may have to make some cheese this week...:rockin: If I do, I'll post the results with pix.

Hey, James, I've got the same size press as you, though no basket. I was figuring I could line with cheesecloth like any other cheese mold. Might need to cut up a cutting board to fit the bottom where your sausage or fruit juice would normally exit.

If you do try this, it occurred to me that you would need a way to hold the handle in place once you reached the pressure you wanted......let me know if you figure out a way to do this!

Looking forward to your results....my first cheese will be a brie, so I've got some time to figure out pressing!

Rich

I've got a screw-type press (no spring), a dutch press, and a sausage stuffer (5# stainless variety). To answer your question, the sausage stuffer might work similarly to the screw press, but it would have both problems I describe below. I recommend a dutch-style press. You could build one yourself pretty easily. It's actually easier to just fashion a mold and follower out of household or Home Depot materials and simply put loose weights on it.

The screw-type are problematic. They will press your cheese, but most of them have one or both of the following faults:

1. There is no "spring" between the screw and the follower (the follower is the plunger that sits on top of the cheese). Thus, as the whey drains from the cheese, there suddenly isn't ANY pressure. There are screw presses with a spring that maintains some pressure, but it's impossible for them to maintain the correct pressure.
2. There is no force gauge to indicate the force on the cheese. Thus, you're left just cranking down on it and hoping for the best. I've made much cheese with this exact method and it turned out fine, but if you get into the hobby further you'll want better control. Imagine brewing beer without a thermometer.

The dutch-style use a lever arm at the end of which you place a weight. The mechanical advantage of this simple machine means both of the problems above are solved. The only downside to one of these style presses is that they are necessarily larger.

Here's the two presses I have now. I'll probably sell the screw-type one I have for cheap. I love the thing, all maple and stainless, but I think I'm going to move completely to the dutch style.

The Ultimate Cheese Press


Sturdy Press

rgreenberg2000 said:

Looking forward to your results....my first cheese will be a brie, so I've got some time to figure out pressing!

Click to expand...

You don't press a brie. It's made by ladling the curds into a mold and letting it drain under its own weight overnight. It's a soft cheese.

I just made a camembert (ate one of them last night in fact while watching football). You can see it here:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f130/camembert-cheeses-progress-506268/

passedpawn, thanks for your insight on the "screw" style presses. I was coming to the same conclusion about their shortcomings as I did more research. Was hoping I could use the sausage stuffer to avoid the equipment investment on the front end of a hobby that I may/may not get into (gee, know any other hobbies like that?!?)

Oh, and I knew that I wouldn't be pressing the brie, that's what I meant by I have some time to figure out pressing since I won't need to press that one! Just waiting on my kit to show up so I can ruin some milk!

Cheers,
Rich

rgreenberg2000 said:

passedpawn, thanks for your insight on the "screw" style presses. I was coming to the same conclusion about their shortcomings as I did more research. Was hoping I could use the sausage stuffer to avoid the equipment investment on the front end of a hobby that I may/may not get into (gee, know any other hobbies like that?!?)

Oh, and I knew that I wouldn't be pressing the brie, that's what I meant by I have some time to figure out pressing since I won't need to press that one! Just waiting on my kit to show up so I can ruin some milk!

Cheers,
Rich

Click to expand...

Oh, gotcha. I misinterpreted.

Where are you getting your recipes? Ingredients? Why type of milk are you using?

Reading a bunch and amalgamating, but looking a lot at Cheesemaking.com, and cheeseforum.org (pretty sure you are on there, too.) Ordered a kit from TheCheeseMaker.com (Camember/Baby Brie) which has the mould, rennet, culture, mold, etc. I haven't looked at sourcing milk just yet, but will probably go to Whole Foods (Redwood City, CA), and see what they have for local, not UP milk for starters. If I enjoy the process (and hopefully the result, too, though my expectations are mid/low), then I'll do some additional research into all of the various supply components to make sure I'm doing things right, with good-great ingredients, etc.

Hopefully I can hit you up if I need help!

Rich

Yep, that's me over there. Their forum wouldn't let me use "passedpawn" because it had "ass" in it. Heh.

Whole Foods probably sells "Grassmilk - Cream on Top". It's pasteurized, but not homogenized. It makes great cheese. Look for the very expensive carton that says "Cream On Top" on it. Later you can try cheaper milk, but it's nice to have an early success.

Good luck!

passedpawn said:

Yep, that's me over there. Their forum wouldn't let me use "passedpawn" because it had "ass" in it. Heh.

Whole Foods probably sells "Grassmilk - Cream on Top". It's pasteurized, but not homogenized. It makes great cheese. Look for the very expensive carton that says "Cream On Top" on it. Later you can try cheaper milk, but it's nice to have an early success.

Good luck!

Click to expand...

Yeah, I ran into you over there as well. Where do you buy your supplies? My LHBS had rennet, but the supply was out of date. Are you buying cultures or cutivating your own?

rgreenberg2000 said:

Hey, James, I've got the same size press as you, though no basket. I was figuring I could line with cheesecloth like any other cheese mold. Might need to cut up a cutting board to fit the bottom where your sausage or fruit juice would normally exit.

If you do try this, it occurred to me that you would need a way to hold the handle in place once you reached the pressure you wanted......let me know if you figure out a way to do this!

Looking forward to your results....my first cheese will be a brie, so I've got some time to figure out pressing!

Rich

Click to expand...

I love my press, and use it more than I thought I would. I think passedpawn answered both of our questions on this.