Just a few seconds in the microwave reduced it to a puddle.  A delicious puddle at that.

Rich, glad to hear it turned out successfully.
I just noticed that you asked earlier in this post about or Cojack…
Well, I cracked it a few weeks ago and although the taste is fantastic, the texture really suffered from all of the extra manipulation.
The cheese simply will not slice.
When trying to cut off a piece it will crumble into small to large pieces.
What we’ve been doing with this cheese is slicing up what we feel like eating and then waxing over the surface. We just keep the “crumbles” in a zip lock bag and it keeps for weeks with no problem
I’m thinking of mixing some of this up in a mac and cheese and we also used some in a cheeseball last night. As I said, the taste is fantastic but I still count it as a failure.
Oh well…...with everything that I did trying to save this cheese, it could have turned out MUCH worse.
Again, congrats on your Jack style of cheese
This is one that I’ll be making soon since I want to try one with a different recipe that gives the Ph target readings.

Dave

Sorry about your Cojack.  I hope your daughter is not disappointed and will continue to make other cheeses with you.  So, you have a ready supply of salad crumbles.

On the Jack.  It does have a very noticeable after taste, somewhat bitter.  But I found today that if I leave it out to air for a while before eating, the after taste disappears.  It is, unfortunately, too dry to be a really good cheese.  The problems I had with the pressing were obviously its downfall.  I will be making another in the future with some Jalepenos in it.  I love pepper Jack.

Rich….
Tay isn’t really disappointed in the cheese. I honestly wish I had her understanding of how sometimes things don’t work out as well as you had hoped. I’ve always been the type that feels things should go perfectly ALL THE TIME. She’s more the type that rolls with the punches which I find to be a much more desirable attitude.
Also, she loves the cheddar “crumbles” you can buy in the store. To her it’s perfectly fine to chop at little of this cheese off of the block and put onto her salad. I’m just wanting to use it up as quickly as possible so that I don’t have to look at the “failure” any longer.
As for pepper jack, it’s one of my favorite cheeses.
I’ve never had much luck with Monterey Jack cheese so a few weeks ago I made the Toscano Pepato recipe off of the New England Cheese Making site and added red and green jalepenos to it.
I won’t know how it turned out for another couple of weeks but the curd really did look fantastic once pressed. I"m hoping to crack it really early so that it will have a creamy, moist texture.
Also, I did get a recipe from Danlac, for Monterey Jack that gives the Ph readings for the various steps and also includes a cheddaring step in the process.
I plan on making this one possibly as early as Sunday to see how it turns out.
Initially I thought that Monterey Jack was one of the easier cheeses to make but I’ve since decided that it is one of the most difficult to do correctly.

Dave