I'm back from my 10 weeks gone and will start making cheese again next weekend. Last week I essentially finished my new press. It's got a mechanical advantage of 7 without the rope/pulley and 20 with. I also received my 4 kg Gouda mold on Thursday. The coke is there for reference (I was so excited about how big it was, I took it to work for show-and-tell. Every was very nice and humored me...) You can also see 1 of the little molds I got right before leaving and haven't been able to use yet. My first make will be an 8 gallon batch of Caerphilly that I will divide up into a bunch (8 or so) of these little guys. I'll be experimenting with them--one will copy
dthelmer's negligence, some will have junk in them (pepper corns, cummin, coriander, onion, herbs...?), at least one will have a paprika rind, and I'm not sure what else. I plan to use the big guy after that. I'm considering doing a (for me) monster Parmesan. In any case, it's good to be back.
[img width= height= alt=New press and molds]https://sphotos-a-dfw.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn2/970676_381828381942608_1476898716_n.jpg[/img]