Cracked open my first stirred curd cheddar today. I used 2 gallons of non homo, pasteurized, whole milk. The cheese was aged 60 days. Overall this is a disappointment. The flavor is very bland and the texture is dry and almost chalky. It was however my first attempt at the stirred curd recipe so I’m hoping the other two I have aging will come out better. My farmhouse cheddars are out of this world good so I’m surprised at my results with this one. Has anyone out there had similar results to these?

I still have about 30 days to go on my 1st attempt.  I am not expecting too much as I did not understand the pressing so I really kept the screws turned down on the cheese press.  I think I may have over pressed it and therefore do not have hight expectations.

Now I am pressing with a weight system and feel that I am getting better results with my wheels.  The taste will tell however in a couple of months.

My two neufachatels turned out great though.

I think I’m going to try pressing all the curds into 1 larger wheel as opposed to 2 smaller ones. I may retain more moisture that way. I’m not sure if my pressing weight will be the same though. I’ll be using the same cheese mould so the diameter will be the same. I’ll try using the same pressing guidelines and see what happens.

It will be more moist, u will need more weight if its wider and u want to maintain the density of the others.

The wheel would be the same width and about twice as thick.

The the same weight will be fine

I agree, use the same weight.  I went to 3 gallon batches from 2 gallon and the same weight works great.

Cheers.  UP next is a caerphilly for me.

Since the weight would be evenly distributed throughout the whole, I can see where the same weight would be correct.  Would one need to increase the pressing time to compensate for a larger mass, in order for the liquid to work its way out properly?

I’m going to go with the same times at first but I’ll monitor the amount of whey coming out. If I’m still seeing a significant amount of whey accumulating, I’ll continue to press.

Ul be able to tell easily when u flip it .

I did not notice a significant difference in whey amounts over the appropriate pressing times.  It usually had subsided for either batch quantity that I have used at the end of the pressing period.