Bruce, can’t say about a preferred recipe. The only one I have is from Ricki Carroll’s book. And I have no pH meter either.
Nabil, its 6” X 3 1/4”. Made from 4 Gal of raw milk. And I chose to wax it already. It was getting very dry and just starting to form slight cracks in the top surface. My kitchen is showing 46% RH, but apparently it dried faster than anticipated. Of course, the cheese was already quite dry when it came out of the press.
Regarding bandaging: I’ve opened two bandaged cheeses so far, and I’m thinking that over a very long aging time some maintenance should be done on the bandage itself. I understand Nabil has a bandaged cheddar that is a year old. Have you done anything with it? Like adding more lard/shortening as the months go by? Also, there seems to be a lot of rind formation during aging this way, and I’m reluctant to lose any of my cheese.
Neil, maybe you should take a break from Swiss long enough to do a cheddar. Let your frustration subside for a little while. Besides, you have to wait quite a while on the Swiss anyway You could do a cheddar while the Swiss sweats.