Here are a few pictures of my fourth cheddar; it is my third using the "traditional cheddar" recipe found in the Ricki Carroll book, but I did modify just a bit this time by adding a little thermo to the culture. I also added annatto, my first time using that. One other change was that I did this as a 3-gallon make; I could only find 2 gallons of whole milk that were really fresh, so I also used 1 gallon of 2% plus a pint of heavy cream.
The curd seemed a bit fragile, especially at first, even after allowing some extra time to set -- perhaps the result of the annatto? or perhaps of the addition of the UP cream?? However, once it began to shrink and cook, it firmed up nicely. It is now in the press ... and in 6 months or more, I can tell you how it turned out!