I see no mention of checking the pH in your posts. Were you doing this or strictly following a recipe and going by time? Timed recipes are only reproducible if all factors are the same: temperature, starting pH, culture amount and viability, draining pH, etc., etc. For whatever its worth here is how I do a cheese I've not done before:
1. Pick a starting recipe from a book, etc. to get the basic "bones" of the procedure down.
2. Search for the recipe on CheeseForum in either the Wiki's or a general search.
3. Look at the New England Cheese
recipes 4. Google search for the cheese making recipe.
5. Read all the comments on the CheeseForum from others who've made the cheese.
6. Refine my Excel spreadsheet started in item 1 with emphasis on putting pH goals at the various key points.
Then I make the cheese as close as possible to the recipe I've created from an amalgamation of the above recording the pH, temperatures, press weights, flip times, etc. as I go along. (I've attached copies of my Cheese Make Logs (.xls, .xlsx) that I use.) (Credits to whomever I stole this from!)
Doing it in an organized fashion like this allows you to check your results against "how you did it" several months prior and make any necessary adjustments.
