Mould size question

[ToddPEI]

I've just started reading about cheesemaking, and am currently reading "Mastering Basic Cheesemaking" by Gianaclis Caldwell. A number of her hard cheese recipes that i'm interested in trying call for 8-10 Litres of milk. But, I can't find any mention of what size mould I should be using.

For example, for a gouda made using 10L of milk, should I get an 800g hard cheese mould? or should I go larger and get the 1800g hard cheese mould:

http://homebrewsupplies.ca/product/1765-cheese-mouldpress-plate-800g/
http://homebrewsupplies.ca/product/2212-hard-cheese-mouldpress-1800g/

A non-equipment related question, what is everyone's preferred cheesemaking techniques book? As an example, "How to Brew" by John Palmer is the quintessential homebrewer book, it has techniques and recipes for beginners as well as advanced brewers, is there an equivalent book for cheesemaking?

Thank you in advance for your help

[awakephd]

Hmm ... I would estimate that the smaller mold would be just right for an 8-10L make, while the larger would suit a 12-14L make.

Please note that this is based on my limited experience with 2-gallon makes, a bit more than 8L, using a 4.25" mold (just a tad smaller than the smaller mold you show). As always, the only final answer is to try it and begin to develop your own experience!

And by the way, welcome to the forum!

[ToddPEI]

Thanks for the welcome Andy.

[Duntov]

Welcome Todd!  You will get good advice from the guys here.  And don't forget to post your progress.  We love photos.

[wattlebloke]

I'm with Andy on the mold size. 8 litres (2 gallons) goes into a 2 lb mold nicely. 8 litres in a larger mold gives you a very flat cheese!  It depends a lot on what shape (height/width ratio) you want your final cheese, and that is very much a traditional consideration, with important ramifications for the aging characteristics of the cheese. Caldwell is an excellent book. But compare recipes from different books/websites, and prepare to get confused! try this:https://www.cheesemaking.com/Gouda.html
You will pick up a lot of good basic information from this same website...
Photo shows a 4 litre Cheddar make, a 6 litre Caerphilly (cheese weighs 830 g/1lb 13oz) and the 1.4 litre capacity (3lb) (4.5 " x 5.5") mold I used for them. The mold would be described as a 2 lb mold, because you end up with a 2 lb cheese, though you can fit in more in than that at the start. The curds compress a fair way...
cheers, Edwin

[Frodage3]

preferred cheesemaking techniques book?

Hi Todd and welcome to the forum! I used Caldwell's book, too. I also followed the advice on Ricki Carroll's New England Cheese website.

[peterseaford]

Good Morning all - I am a new boy , though 84 years old , and made my first cheese yesterday - Colby.

i bought a kit from Mad Milli and it had a mould with pressure arrangement included but the "follower" was a disk of wood and was small enough not to press straight down so my cheese is very lopsided but it looks like cheese so i will continue to air dry and then wait three months to see how it tastes

i have purchased another Dutch style press and it came with two baskets with followers of plastic that are almost a perfet fit but the trouble is that the two baskets are 6 1/4 " wide by 3 3/4" deep

My question relates to volume of cheese - my first choice would be 6 nltrs of milk as i have a pot that size but would the cheese fit into that mould ?

The next question is most recipes i read are for minimum 10 litres - is there a place to search for 6 litre hard cheese recipes?

Hope you all have a wonderful day

kind regards

peter

[mikekchar]

Cheese is very slightly less dense than water.  We'll pretend that it is exactly the same density.  Then with a little bit of math we can calculate how much cheese will fit in a mold.

The volume of a cylinder is pi x r x r x h, where r is the radius of the cylinder, h is the height of the cylinder, and pi is 3.14159....  We're going to do this in metric because it makes it *much* easier.  You can convert to imperial at either end, but to calculate in imperial requires a brain much larger than mine.  Because we're pretending that cheese has the same density as water, then 1 ml of volume weighs 1 gram.  1 ml is also 1 cubic centimeter.  This is why metric is always the way to go...

Let's take your 6.25" basket.  First convert to cm.  The internet tells me it's 15.875 cm.  That's the diameter, of course, so we divide by 2 to get the radius.  However, that's *awfully* close to 16 cm, so let's make the radius 8.  We want to square that and multiply by pi.  The square of 8 is 64,  times 3.14159... = ~ 204.   This the the area of the circle.  Because we increased r a little bit, let's just call it 200 square centimeters.  For each cm of height, it will thus weigh 200 grams (because metric is great).  So if you have 500 grams of cheese, it will take 2.5 cm, or a little over an inch.  If you  basket is 3.75 inches deep, that's about 9.5 cm, which is 1900 grams, or apparently about 4 lbs 3 oz.

Of course, you can't make a 1900 gram cheese in that mold, because you need space for draining.  It depends on the type of cheese, but basically you will end up with about half of that, so about 1 kg (or just over 2 lbs).

The amount of milk you use depends on the yield.  Most cheese, before aging, will have a yield of 10-15%  So if you start with 6 liters of milk, you will end up with between 600 and 900 grams of cheese.  The 600 gram cheese will be 3 cm thick (1.2 inches) and the 900 gram cheese will be 4.5 cm thick (1 3/4")

Typically you would use 8 liters of milk for a mould of that size and for some cheeses you could go as high as 10 liters.

I hope that helps! (And I hope that I didn't make any mistakes.  Best to do the math yourself!)

[peterseaford]

Thanks very much - I am going to sharpen my pencil and try and follow you

Kindest regards

Peter

[B e n]

Mike got to it first. A little math will get you there. Don't fear buying a few molds though, you will need different volumes for different cheese.

Depending on your skills and tools you can make molds. I made a few 5" out of some stainless exhaust tubing, they cost a fraction of buying them. You could also make them out of things like butter tubs with holes punched in, tupperwear ETC until you get a feel for what you need. Cheese molds are straight sided which is nice, but some cheeses are meant to have a taper.

Of course after a few makes you will have a good idea of what you like and how thick you want your cheeses to be. Some cheeses, like Brie need a lot more mold space. Something like a parmesean needs a lot less (its mostly drained before you get into the mold). I do mostly 8 liter batches, I find I get a nice height to width ratio for a tomme out of a single 5" mold. But if I do brie I need at least a couple of 4" brie molds.

[peterseaford]

Thanks very much - your suggestions really help a lot for a beginner.

I made my very first cheese - Colby - and I am thrilled with it - so far.

Have dried it and vacuum sealed it  - it looks good - so far

Had a problem with a “follower” that wasn’t the right size so on final pressing it tilted a lot but I just trimmed it off

The correct follower is in the mail so I will try again this week to make Cheddar

Kind regards and appreciate your advise

Peter