Now that I've eaten the cheese and the whole "gee, I made that" feeling is behind me, here's some after the fact thoughts on this make.
1. In all reality, the cheese texture is most likely more chalky than a caerphilly should be. Probably attributable to over acidification and cutting the curd inexpertly too small. I'm going to use a pH meter in the future to assess where the acidification really occurred (I suspect in the press but could be wrong. I also used a fair bit of starter (1/2 tsp total) which may have had an impact.
2. I think I'd like it more salty than it was. It was somewhat difficult to tell with the texture though. I'm thinking next time I'm going to cheddar and salt it rather than brine it.
3. Not sure if it detracted from the taste but I think I'm getting a handle on my rennet. This one flocc'd really fast. About half as much as I used will be about right. I've started counting drops but I guess I should use something a little more precise like a syringe or a pipette.
4. I'm either going to find someone that sells or make myself a horizontal curd knife. The diagonal cutting is pretty imprecise (plus I like having the right tools for the job.) My curds are getting better with practice but after watching videos of real curd knives I'm jealous.
That's really all the bad things I guess I can think of. Nice part is it was edible and I enjoyed it for lunch a number of days and various snacks. Also it let me get the first hard cheese out of the way. I've got several more aging right now but I'm doing another Caerphilly next week with the aim of improving technique and turning out an even better cheese. I'll start another post to get recommendations on pH targets and their effect.
thanks
Mike