One of the reasons for wanting to make larger cheeses was that I figure if I'm going to go to all the effort of spending most of a day making cheese and then waiting 12 months or more for it to mature, I may as well make it worth my while. My setup will allow me to do 6-gallon batches, and this is one of the larger cheeses I've made.
24 litres (6 gallons) Pyengana skim milk (0.1% fat 3.5% protein, pasteurised, non-homogenised)
1/2 litre Pyengana cream (standardising the milk to roughly 2.2% fat)
1/2 pint prepared Thermo C culture
3/4 tsp lipase
2 tsp CaCl
5 ml rennet
I followed Caldwell's recipe for hard Italian grating cheese.
Pressed, it weighted precisely 2 kg. Now, after not quite a week in the cave, it's lost 130g or so. I'm very pleased with the knit, although there are a couple of small cracks appearing on the edges, and there is one small tear in the centre of the cheese on one side where the cheese stuck to the cloth during pressing. It's ageing on a rack in the open in the cave at the moment, I'm hoping to try for a natural rind
Photos are: 1. Bain marie at capacity,
2. First flip,
3. Just out of press,
4. At 5 days old.