I had to leave for work by 2:30 on Monday afternoon, but couldn't see life being any easier any later in the week (and some of the milk was almost a week old as it was), but I went ahead and started a batch of Colby anyway.
I rushed the process a bit and the curds were the consistency of fluffy scrambled eggs, but it was a choice of trying to get them in the mold or just leaving them sit...the mold sounded better to me.
They didn't fit in my 6 inch mold and were still very wet, so I decided to go back to the deep fryer basket I used to use. Even then, the curds were above the top of the "mold", so I just twisted down the top of the curd bag, put a follower on top and put it in the press with 120 lbs of weights on it.
The next morning, the curd completely fell apart and was still extremely wet. Figuring that the worst I could do would be to turn it into chicken food, I broke it up (texture of damp cottage cheese), and re-salted it as I couldn't taste any salt in it. It did have great flavor, though.
I put it back in the cheese making kettle with the lid on and a 20-lb weight on top, then in the sink full of hot tap water to warm the curd. I came back 30 minutes later and some of the whey had started expelling and the curds had shrunk a bit, but they were still only about 75 degrees. I re-filled the sink with hot water and allowed it to sit another 45 minutes, at which point the curd was 86 degrees and there was a lot of whey expelled. I packed it into the cheese bag lined mold and pressed it at 80 lbs overnight (about 18 hours).
It is now drying in my cabinet and looks lovely with a really nicely knit surface.
HOOOO-RAY!
