I made a traditional cheddar last Saturday, and the recipe says to cut the strips of curds into 1/2” pieces so I ended up with strips of curd 1/2” wide by 1 1/2” wide, or so. I didn’t actually measure. After that I was reading around on the board and someone stated that they would mill the curds down smaller the next time that they made it. Well, I didn’t like the way that the cheese pressed so I had the same opinion.
Yesterday I made another one, and I took a blade of some kind that fit in the pot and I cut the curds down to pea size, although it would have been a oddly shaped pea. Anyway, after the 1st press of 15 minutes at 10lbs of pressure the curds weren’t even stuck together. When I tried to flip it over it just fell all apart. Now, after the 12 hour press at 40lbs, it is all on block of cheese, but it is all mottled little pieces of curds, stuck together, not a block of cheese. I put it back in the press for 24 hours for the last 24 hour press. I don’t expect it to get better.
I think that I have not managed the part where you get the curd in the press while it is still warm. I had made a 4 gallon cheese, and I wanted to press it into two 2lb cheeses, so I separated it into two bowls to make sure that I did it evenly. Then I neglected to put the curd back in the pot to heat it back up to 100 degrees.
I do have two cheese presses now, and a ph meter! I also have a mold large enough to press a 4 lb cheese if I want to. However I have marbly cheddar.
I liked making the stirred curd cheddar better. Does the traditional cheddar taste different from the stirred curd? You do the cook the curds, they are just not in slabs.
Its hard to say just went “wrong” with your make. You said you pressed with 40 lbs, and I’m sure that’s what the recipe called for. The matter to determine is whether that was enough to knit the curd together. Cheddar takes quite a bit of pressure. I use 110 lbs, but then I use a 6” mold. That gives me about 3.7 lbs per sq. inch of surface. 4 psi or more would not be out of the question. Your 40 lbs, if you’re using a 4” mold, will give you about 3 lbs per sq. inch. To get a similar press with a 4” mold, you would need more like 50 lbs. Also, its important to keep the mold warm during the initial stages of the pressing. Yes, the curd should be kept at @ 100 degrees, but the mold should also be kept warm. You can accomplish this by wrapping a warm damp towel around the mold. Doing so during the first and second pressing stages will facilitate a better knit. And by the way, don’t be too depressed - its still going to taste great.
Thanks. I am going to try it again, I am too stubborn to let cheese whoop me. So my mold needs to be warm, and my curds need to be warm and I should look at the pressing pressure. I have made the recipe 3 times and it had not knitted, so the recipe could be wrong for the amount of pressure. I will be careful with all three issues.
I looked at Peter Dixon’s Cheddar recipe and he says to press 25 PSI for 30 minutes and then 40 PSI for the rest of the time. That is incredibly high. Maybe he meant 2.5 and 4.0.
I’m just researching and thinking and planning ahead. I know that if I had a 6x6 sq mold, the surface area would be 36 inches, I just don’t know how to figure the area of a round. I will ask my computer at work. I work at a sheet metal company and figuring the area of the duct in sq feet is a normal thing to have to do. I could figure out a 6” round pipe, 12” long, but a flat circle I don’t know the formula for. I will when I get off from work.
I went to work and fed a round piece of metal into my computer and it gave me a report. So I fed in a lot of different sizes and printed out the report and left it at work. So I came home and looked it up on the internet.
I am still confused over the pressing pressure. Every cheddar cheese recipe that I have found, (other than Peter Dixon’s), says 40 lbs and then 50 lbs, and they are all for 1 or 2 gallons of milk, which indicated a 1 or 2lb mold. I think that the commercial 1 to 2 lb mold is 5-1/2” round, or mine is anyway.
The radius squared, times PI, times 2.5 PSI - 49lbs. So my recipe’s area pressing at 2.5 PSI. If I go with the theory that Peter Dixon’s recipe says 2.5 psi for 30 minutes and 4.0 for the rest of the time I can come up with something to work with. (Peter Dixon’s recipe says 25 and 40 PSI, I inserted the points myself. Otherwise the weight got to be enormous).
The radius squared, times PI, times 4 PSI - 78lbs. So I am pressing a little light at 50 lbs. I understand using PSI for pressing weight is more scientific than “Hey, just use 50 lbs even though I don’t know what size your mold is”. I just need to come up with a PSI for each different type of cheese that I want to make and put that in my recipe.
I am going to try this again and increase the pressure to 2.5 PSI during the first press, and then 4 PSI during the second press. And I am going to keep my curds warm and warm up my mold and wrap a warm cloth around it during the first press. I hope this works out this time.
Rich, how long do you press cheddar? My recipe has a 10 minute press, a 12 hour press, and a 24 hour press. How do you do it?
A 2 lb. mold would be 4” diameter. I use a 6” mold and press as follows: 33 lbs for 15 min; 66 lbs for 15 min; 99 lbs for 2 hrs; 110 lbs for 24 hrs. This is 3.9 psi. I use concrete blocks for weights, so I’m not real flexible on weight. I turn after each press, and for the final press I remove the cheese cloth.
I posted this morning, and it is not here. Thanks for the info, it has pointed me in the right direction. I found some old posts on this site that said that the Rikki Carrol’s recipes are for a 4” mold. I bought a mold at a cheese supplier that said that it was a 2lb mold, and it only holds 2lbs after it has been pressed down for the first time. Until then you have to pile it in the cheese cloth and wrap it around it to hold it up. Anyway, the mold is 5 1/2 inches round. I assumed it was a standard sized mold.
If I re-figure the pressing in my book to come out to PSI, I can re-figure for my 6” mold and press correctly. I have a 5 1/2” and a 6” round. You are right, the final pressing weight is 4 PSI. So today I made 4lbs of stirred curd cheddar and I have it pressing in my 6 inch mold at the right pressure now. It’s a good thing my husband had a lot of weights laying around.
I have 7 cheeses that were not pressed correctly in my cheese cave. Oh well, they should still taste good.
I hope that they melt. I can put them on cheese burgers, and mac and cheese, and nachos…... Doesn’t the ph level control whether or not it melts? All of my ph levels were good, the cheese is just not knitted properly. I hope they melt
This is my 4lb stirred curd cheddar that I made this weekend, it is air drying. I have a fancy TB stamped in the top, my daughter insists it is just a fancy B but I swear it’s a TB. I pressed this this one by PSI so I am sure I got it right this time. This one has 4 gallons of milk and 8 drops of annato coloring, but the color is very slight.
