Thanks Stinky!
But.... between the time I originally started this thread and reading your post, I stumbled on a similar question in Ricky Carrol's FAQs....
3. If I cut the recipe in half, should I use the same pressing weight?
We discourage folks making cheese for aging from using less than two gallons of milk. The reason for this is that the smaller the cheese the higher the ratio of rind to body. This, among other things, tends to allow the cheese to lose moisture too readily.
The simple solution to this is to make a larger cheese and when it approaches its targeted age of ripening, cut it into smaller sections and re-wax the sections you are not using.
If you do plan to go ahead and use the curds from a smaller batch and use the same mold as our recipes call for, you can use the same amount of weight because pressing is more a matter of surface area and that remains unchanged.
4. How do I press my cheese when I have increased the recipe tenfold?
If you are making a larger cheese and keeping the height to width ratio the same (as you should) simply increasing weight proportionately should work. However, many people decide to use a differently shaped mold where the height to width ratio is not kept the same. In this case, the important factor is surface area. Keep the press weight proportionate to the change in surface area. Our recipes are designed for our small mold (2 lb.) with a surface diameter of 4.5.”
What do you think?
