Author Topic: Well, hello  (Read 6302 times)

Geodyne

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Re: Well, hello
« Reply #15 on: September 06, 2013, 09:07:28 PM »
It's something that I've been struggling to understand myself over the last fortnight as I've been working with this recipe. I'm afraid I still don't understand it, despite working in physics.

Bliss's book is very UK-focused. It's a slim paperback with a good treatise on the science behind cheesemaking and then a few English cheese recipes, mostly focused on the cheddared and milled forms of cheese. Her Cheshire recipe calls for annato so I suspect it's for a red cheshire.

Apologies for my lazy typing, I did indeed mean Newton/square metre. To confuse things, Bliss refers to 24.9N/m2 as 5 cwt and 49.6 N/m2 as 10 cwt.

Trying to find conversions for those, I turned up [http://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,10990.msg83813.html#msg83813][/this article] by JeffHamm, which suggests that while 1 cwt = 112 lb, 5 cwt = 7.13 psi and 10 cwt 14.23 psi. However Jeff's spreadsheet suggests that I would need 100kg of weight to achieve that...so somewhere there's an order of two magnitudes difference. 0.006 psi is about a 100g weight!

At the end of the day I opted to use the middle road and use 10kg and 20kg of weights as they seemed a normal range for pressing cheese.

Offline Boofer

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Re: Well, hello
« Reply #16 on: September 07, 2013, 12:56:31 AM »
If you search on "psi", you'll find a few threads discussing the relationship between mould width (sq in or sq cm) and psi or kg/cm*cm.

But it sounds like you arrived at a reasonable compromise. ;)

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Geodyne

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Re: Well, hello
« Reply #17 on: September 07, 2013, 03:46:52 AM »
Thanks Boofer. The relation between psi and mould width I understand, but relating that to the N/m2 instructions threw me.

Fortunately, I'm perfectly comfortable with the fudge factor.  ;)

Geodyne

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Re: Well, hello
« Reply #18 on: September 07, 2013, 04:31:06 AM »
Ah, mystery solved: and this'll teach me (as if) not to rush half-cocked into a recipe without referring back to chapters I read a while back but apparently didn't absorb in relation to the recipe. I've just been re-reading her book while waiting for the curds to set on a stilton to figure out why she's pressing for so many days.

The reason for the multi-day pressing is because Biss focuses on larded and bandaged milled-curd cheese. So the routine *actually* is:

Day of make (day 1): moulding and pressing overnight
Day 2: unmould, trim as required, bathe for 1 minute in 50-60C (122-140F) water (using the pressing cloth) to remove surface fats and encourage rind development. Return to cleaned mould in pressing cloth.
Day 3: Unmould and bandage with fat (traditionally lard) and cheesecloth to one layer, return to press
Day 4: Remove from press and bandage again. Label and place in store.

So as I did all of that without the bandaging - no wonder last week's Cheshires were starting to dry out and crack. I'd been thinking about making another Cheshire tomorrow to trouble-shoot and now I think I'm going to have to so I can try this approach.