Cheese in the CCCP - Cobbled Cheap Cheese Press

[Baby Chee]

Tomorrow I will do a full run of the CCCP:

$20 of work giving me 7.1x the weight on the end.

Finally completed it today (that's an old photo) and need to make two 4 gallon goudas in the next couple days.
I'll be doing liquid smoke and annatto as well.
Anyway, I'm going to use the press and try to play time against pressure.

In the 7.5" dia. mold with 4 gallons of cheese, as my usual cheeses, I will press higher and shorter.

Old style:  50 lbs. @ 12 hours
New trial:  70 lbs. giving 500+lbs. @ 3 hours

Any advice is welcome.  I'm hoping the final cheese is similar to the old style I did, but with color and smoke.

[Sailor Con Queso]

Especially with your new large press, it's not about weight, it's about PSI. You're using a bigger press with more mechanical advantage, so 50 pounds on your old press is not the same as 50 pounds on Big Bertha. Not to beat a dead horse, but if you are using the same hoop as you used before, it's easy to calculate the weight that you need to get the same psi as before. That's the point of using psi. You can go from press to press using the same or different hoops and yet still get exactly the same results.

Gouda does not require heavy pressing. I press Goudas at around 2 psi. I'm pretty sure Wayne does too. It's really easy to overdo it, so calculate the weight you need to achieve 2 psi and you're good to go.

You can do the math and calculate mechanical advantage, however that does not account for your heavy lever arm, or the weight bar that I see. So, if you haven't done so already, I would calibrate your lever arm. Put an accurate scale under the ramrod where the hoop will go. Put a weight, say 10 pounds, on the lever arm and read the scale. If the scale reads 50 pounds, you know THAT location on the lever arm has a 5 to 1 mechanical advantage (10 x 5 = 50). If it reads 60 pounds, then you have a 6 to 1, etc... Now, test the weight at various locations along the lever arm until you find where you have 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 to 1 mechanical advantage. Then you have a LOT of options for using weight very accurately.

[Baby Chee]

That's a good idea.  I have a scale I can use for that, so I'll see.  First, sans extra weight, then with 5 lbs. or something to get an initial reading.

I'm not too sure why you get so heated over the psi thing.  You are ignoring the possibility of psi on a timeline.  Commercial cheese makers will use heavy press with hydraulics for limited times compared to what we do or are advised to do.  I will undoubtably wind up with a harder gouda since I used to press with approximately 1 psi.

[Sailor Con Queso]

I'm not ignoring time at all, just the opposite in fact. Time and PSI are constants. The weight needed is not. However long that you are pressing now, 2 psi at 12 hours or 1 psi at 24 hours, is just fine. If you are happy with your Goudas, why not try to acheive the same results on your big press?

[Baby Chee]

The press will change the dynamic, and I'd like to see where it takes me if I play with it first.  My faith is in recreation when I find something new that isn't working for me.  I'll settle down in a while and go for consistency.

[Baby Chee]

I checked the weights on the stand....

Dry weight from plunger: 76 lbs.
Plunger with 5 lbs.: 112 lbs.

5 lbs. becomes 36 lbs.
7.2x weight

The thing is set up in my kitchen for some serious pressing within the hour; my smoked yellow gouda is settling for a few more minutes and then it gets a good squeeze.
------
First gouda is on the second press with dry weight.

I figured I could easily do two cheeses a day this way, so my second milk is warming on the stove.

[Sailor Con Queso]

So the lightest that you can press with no additional weight added is 76 pounds. Now you see why you need to calibrate with a scale. Have fun.

[Baby Chee]

Yep, I understand my folly now.

The press worked great for the initial pressings for 20 minutes, then I overpressed for 3 hours.  It was 50 lbs. on the arm, and the final cheese is too tight.  The second cheese is still in the pot while the first is in brine.  Another 30 minutes and the second gets the full press for 90 minutes.

BTW, my cheese was still HUGE.  It's bigger than any other cheese made with identical milk to date.  I'm wondering if the liquid smoke  actually helps rennet function!  Maybe annatto does?  I even spilled a little curd accidentally in the sink, and the cheese is a little too big for my brine tupperware which fitted all past cheeses.

[Baby Chee]

Press works good!  Done one cheese and doing the second.

The only flaw is the main arm can go wandering left and right.  I didn't tighten it up enough when putting together, but I used a stray 2x4 in between the main arm and base.  That steadies it well! 

Good stuff for almost no money.


I broke it down too fast.  Shoulda gotten a shot of it in action.  It worked as needed!  Sturdy enough.  Does the job and the cheeses are fine.

The last was done with 50 lbs. on the arm for 1 hour.  The cheese was of similar texture to 50 lbs. direct for 12 hours.

[vogironface]

Cheese press calc tool.

Forgive the length of this but what I am going to attach needs explanation.  Also, I hope I have the science right since I did not study this in school.  Reading of baby Chee’s press here made me think that it would be great to get more flexibility from a press.  Such as using less than the 76 pounds minimum that baby’s press will apply.  There has also been talk of pulleys.  I have created a cheese press calculator to calculate force at the mold in any combination of ways.  You will want the spreadsheet open and in front of you to go through this.  You can download open office for free if you do not have Microsoft products at openoffice.org.  Calc is the spreadsheet application.

First, let me introduce the variables.  There are 5 of them.  4 of them we can change in the calculator.  They are

Column A, Ram distance from pivot.  This is the length of the ram (that presses the cheese) from the pivot point of the arm. 

Column B, Force applied to cheese mold.  How much force do you want to get the PSI you need?

Column C, weight applied to arm.  This is the dead weight applied to the arm.

Column D, Pulley Multiplier.  If no pulley is used then this will be one.  If there is a pulley then you need to know how many times it multiplies forces. 

I have 4 examples in the spreadsheet.  Reference rows 4 and 5 for example 1.  We want 100lbs force on the mold and want to use an 8lb weight (gallon milk jug filled with water) with no pulleys.  In this example we would need to hang that 8lb weight at a distance of 12.5 feet from the pivot. 

Now look at row 5 and see that a pulley with a multiplier of 2 has been added.  We can now hang the same 8lb weight at only 6.25 feet from the pivot.  If the multiplier were to be 3 then the distance would shrink to 4.17 feet/meters/inches or whatever unit you are using.  This will allow us to have a smaller, more manageable machine and still press with tremendous forces using levers and pulleys combined.

Now, for the addition of the ram distance.  I added this for baby Chee.  Chee can press no less than 76 pounds because of the weight of the arm.  I have no idea how long the arm is but I said it was 6 feet.  Knowing that the arm is 6 feet and the force at cheese is 76 and the ram distance is 1 then I come up with an arm weight of 12.65 lbs.  This is a constant and can not be reduced without cutting the arm.  So if Chee wants to apply only 20 lbs of force then we type 20 in column B, 12.65 in C, 1 in D and guess at A until E reads 6 feet.  Or in other words, if Chee moved the ram to 3.8 feet from the pivot then there would be 20lbs of force on the cheese.  Neat!

So, we can now all use this tool to design the most versatile cheese press in the world and press anywhere from a lot to a little on the same press that is small enough to fit in the closet.  Maybe.

[Baby Chee]

That wouldn't be very difficult to do.  For a couple bux I could build an additional platform and plunger down the arm, but for anything less, I can press away from this contraption with free weights.  This was made for large cheeses of 15+ lbs. in 9"+ diameter molds, though it is good to do quick presses on smaller wheels.

If anyone were to build this themselves, I recommend making the height about half of the 3' I did.  1.5 to 2' would be enough and would stabilize the arm better.

[Baby Chee]

My first big cheese.

14 gallons of milk, 1 quart of whipping cream.
Gouda.
Smoke, Annatto.

That pot will hold JUST the 14 gallons of curd and no more, then compresses about 25% away in water.
These cheeses are darn big.



That's the 15 gallon pot on the stove with all the CaCl2, Smoke, Annatto, Milk, and Cream, added and warming.
A 15 gallon pot fits nicely on a stove and can warm well for gouda.  I think I could do a variety of cheeses with 15 gallons on a stovetop.

The final gouda seems very good so far: texture, taste, color, etc.
Now to wait for 2 months until it is matured.

[FarmerJd]

Awesome, Baby Chee. That is a cheese after my own heart.

[Baby Chee]

I haven't been able to weigh it yet, but I would say it is well over 12 lbs., since I lug 10 lb. weights around for the press and find the cheese heavier than a 10 lb. weight.

Hope it is 14+, but am not certain.

I'm trying to figure how to keep the follower from tilting.
Both cheeses have a small slant, not that it is any serious problem, just odd.

[DeejayDebi]

Nice cheese Chee! Although I find it is rarely done a bigger piston bottom will have a larger surface area and tends to slip less. Make an X that fits your mold follower and bolt it on. It won't slip.