I’m doing another Gouda this morning, and the pressing under whey process is apparently one that I have not yet mastered.  I made a follower to fit down into my pot, but pressing it is a challenge.  the weight continually tends to slip to the side and I have to monitor it quite closely.  Has anyone come up with a more fool-proof system that they would be willing to share???

The follower slips to the side? making it thicker is the only way so their is less room for play. Thats why I use 2” thing wooden followers so they would move less in the tube and forced down. Buying a proper commercial mold was a dream since the fit was perfect and just had to focus on centering the weight. The molds are allot cheaper then they used to be.

I wasn’t referring to the follower in the mold - maybe I was not clear enough.  I was talking about the follower, or whatever its called, that goes into the pot of curds and whey in order to press under whey.  I though I had it balanced just right on three different occasions; but when I looked away for a couple minutes I found that it was leaning and about to spill the weight off the top.  As I said, I haven’t mastered this technique just yet.

A picture is worth a thousand words

Rich,

I’m not sure what type of weight you are using but you really don’t need much weight when pressing under whey.
Becuase of that I use a one gallon milk jug filled with water (approx. 8 lbs.) and that keeps the weight really stable.

I made my pot follower out of a piece of food grade cutting board, cut to the inside diameter of the cheese pot. So far it works really well and I’ve never had a problem with the weight slipping.

Hope this helps.

Dave

I’ve done the same thing - using a poly cutting board and cutting it to size.  I also added a handle so I could get hold of it to remove it from the whey more easily.  However, I got to thinking, which is sometimes dangerous, that by using 2 liter bottles for weight and setting them directly on the follower, I was defeating my purpose.  The weight of liquid in the bottles would be displaced by the whey around it so that the actual pressing weight was diminished.  I reasoned that the weight would have to be above the level of whey in order to be accurate.  Was I wrong in this assumption???  Anyway, I used my 6” mold on the follower, and set the weight on top of that to keep it out of liquid.  However, when I did this, slipping became a problem.  Since its only a 10 minute press, I’ve had to babysit it every minute in order to keep it upright.  I was hoping there was a better way of doing this.

Maybe its the center point of the weight u are loading. Look at the “commercial version” the weight is leveled out. The top weight will still need to be level.

Rich,

If you have too much whey left in the pot then “floating” does become a problem. Because of this I usually drain the whey until it is just over the curd (perhaps 1/2” - 3/4” above) and then there is no floating of the weight that I can see.

Even though the recommendation is to leave 2” of whey above the curd I have not noticed any detrimental effect by removing more.

Dave

Duh,  now why didn’t I thinkf that?  Sounds pretty logical.  So now I can go back to placing the weight directly on the follower and not have to worry about it.  Many thanks.

hey guys miss u all

Been missing you too, Nabil.  What have you been up to???

Green Cheese Maker - 18 February 2011 11:20 PM

Been missing you too, Nabil.  What have you been up to???

following my other hobbies , meat curing and bread making

Nice to have edible hobbies, isn’t it?  Mine is gardening.  And, of necessity, remodeling of my house.  Been making some furniture also.