Yesterday I made my 4 gallon Manchego. I promised myself I would try to implement a number of suggestions I had gathered from this forum. One of those changes was to press under whey with cheesecloth, but then to remove the cloth when I flipped the cheese (if the curds had knitted).
This morning when I went to remove the wheel from the mould, there were significantly longer nubbins of cheese protruding through the mould holes. It was difficult to remove the wheel from the mould and when I did, the wheel looked like Pinhead from the Hellraiser horror movies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinhead_(Hellraiser).
The amount of weight I used for the final pressing of my 8 inch mould and 4 gallon wheel was 35 pounds. I had three recipes to draw from (Ricki Carroll's, "200 Easy Homemade Cheese Recipes", and the one on this forum.)
I would imagine the nubbins will come off over time as the wheel is brined, washed, rubbed, etc. It's a negative aesthetic for me. I'm rethinking removing the cheesecloth, or at least
when to go naked. The argument is between a few cheesecloth creases which are less significant than the presence of a lot of little raised pips. The presence of the cheesecloth minimizes the protrusion of curd through the mould holes.
-Boofer-