I got tired of trying to stuff a fixed number of gallons of milk into my limited mold selection and thought about flipping the problem around and asking how much milk I'd need to fit in a certain size mold to get the aspect ratio that works best for that particular cheese. Put another way - What's wrong with making a 3.5 gallon batch if that provides the correct amount of curds to press to get a 2:1 (diameter:height) cheese. After all, you can make tapioca pudding with the left over milk even if it is raw milk.
So, I came up with a little Excel Spreadsheet that helps facilitate this. A copy is attached. Note that the inputs are gallons, yield and density. Yield and density are generally available for the cheese you want to make if you look around. (
200 Cheese Recipes has yield data and densities vary from about 1.02 to 1.07 - soft high moisture cheeses to hard grana cheeses). You can enter your mold diameter where appropriate, have the spreadsheet calculate the area and then play around with the milk volume to get the aspect ratio for the mold you want. Play with it and you'll see how to make it work.