My husband has undertaken to make me a cheese press and I was thinking just the simple board arrangment that I can pile my weights onto, like this ...

The weights I have are big 5kg iron plates. So five of them piled on top for a cheddar.
Is it practical?

Or should I get him to make a cheesypress?

You will not be happy with the “cheesypress.”  It is a spring operated system with a screw to apply pressure.  What happens is that once you set your pressure, the cheese compresses, the spring expands and your pressure decreases.  Unless you want to continually readjust your press, you need to go with your first choice.  With actual weight on top, your pressure is constant.  If you have the wherewithal to build the cheesypress, you can utilize it for your mold with the horizontal bar as a stabilizer to hold the mold down.  A couple of us have had problems with molds pushing up and curd squeezing out.  what you do is set the mold assembly inside your press as illustrated below.

Samantha…
One word of caution, if you make the sandwich board style….
Make sure you have a VERY close tolerance on the “slider holes”.
You don’t want the top board to drag but you want as little play as humanly possible. Otherwise you will constantly be making minute adjustments to your weights to keep the wheel from coming out lopsided.
Now having said that, I’ll say thi, (please cover your eyes for this one, Rich)....
The BEST press on the market can be found at:
http://www.thecheesewhey.com
Once you get to the site, check under “New Equipment” and look at the 8” Master Series Cheese press. I have one of these and I can’t say enough about the ease of use and the quality results it gives.
This press is not inexpensive but in my opinion it is worth every penny, considering it should last a lifetime and will always provide perfect results.
Just my two cents.

Dave

So rich ... let me get this right ... you’re suggesting that I get a sandwich press, but have a bar and a screw type arrangement to keep the mold from slipping?

He Who Must Be Obeyed, definitely has the were withal to do that!

Dave .. your press is a thing of beauty ... but $500 US dollar with the poor aussie $ in the toilet and the cost of shipping .. when I win the lottery!

Samantha…..
Sorry, I did not realize that you are in Australia. I’m sure that the shipping charges alone would be extreme.
I used the sandwich board press for three years before getting my current press and it really does work well. Especially if used with the 16” x 16” concrete paving blocks for weight.
Just make sure you have a close tolerance on the holes and you will be happy with the press. The only real problem comes in when working with large amounts of weight (I use 202 lbs. for the final press on an 8” cheddar), since it’s a real pain to stack and unstack the weight.
Good luck on whatever design you decide to go with, but I would take Rich’s advice and steer away from the Cheesypress style.

Dave

Thanks Dave. That’s reassuring. I’m definitely planning on starting out in a small way (although I’ve said that before) and the sandwich boards will definitely be fine for what I’m planning.

If I can chime in here?

I built my first press, similar to the first photo at the heading post.The constant balancing act was a major concern, so I opted for my version of a Wheeler Press, off Ricki’s web site.

It has some major advantages. Not overly expensive, robust, can be calibrated, easily opened to flip the mould. It is simple to centralize to prevent lopsided cheeses.

Combine this with two followers and curds escaping from the bottom will be a thing of the past.

Photos available if requested.

I have two sandwich-type presses the hubby made me, and I love them.  I’ve had no trouble with lopsided wheels, and I find it very easy to regulate the weight.

Jeanne..
Good to hear from you!
My problem with lopsided wheels came from the fact that I drilled my holes way too big.
I used 1/2” galvanized pipe for the uprights and drilled my holes at 3/4”. This allowed way too much “play” and I was always having to make very tiny adjustments to the weights to keep the pressure centered over the wheel.
If I was to make another press of this type I would keep the tolerance as close as possible while still allowing the board to slide freely.
From the different posts I’ve seen on this type of press, this is exactly what most people have done and it seems to work out really well for them.
I’m dense sometimes and didn’t foresee this problem when making my own.
Btw….
Have you figured out how to make the natural wax, more yellow in color?
I agree that it would look much better (and cover much better) with a little extra tint.

Dave

You are on the right track with your idea of direct pressure from the weights above the cheese. You can save yourself from using or finding a bunch of heavy weights by using a lever arm which essentially multiplies the force in relation to the length of the arm. If you are interested, I can send you a couple of ideas and formula’s to use. I also have a chart I put together for various mold sizes that shows equivalent pressures which is really what you are trying to achieve anyway.

My first attempt was a spring system but I realized my error and am now in the process of changing to the lever system. With the spring your psi drops as the cheese compresses.

Thanks Gibb. I have about ummm ... 65lbs of weights that I wave around the lounge room in a desparate effort to stay young!

haha!

HWMBO is going to make me a 6” mold out of some stainless pipe he found at work. So I think I’m OK without using a lever.
Somewhere .. maybe on this site ... I saw someone had put the bathroom scales under their lever press and used that to calibrate the arm. Nice and empirical!