Drying concern for my newest cheddar

[phorest]

Hello,

Last week I made my newest cheddar that was stacked & milled. Everything seemed to go along fine though a week into drying the finished, pressed cheese it is still wet on the top and bottom. The sides are dry and the rind looks fine. It's a 6" round about 4" Tall and approx. 4 Lbs.

Should I be concerned? It's been almost a week it's still weeping quite a bit. Previously I have made simple farmhouse-style cheddars that dried fabulously in 3 days. Still, I'll let it go as long as it needs to be dry for rind formation.

My drying room (a cedar-lined sauna) keeps at about 60F & 75% RH
Thanks for any replies.

[padams]

Do you have more details?  What type of milk did you use?

[phorest]

Store-bought. 2 gals of homogenized/pasteurized and 1.5 gals of NON-homogenized/pasteurized cow milk.
1/4 tsp of CLCH(30%), 1-1/2 cups of cultured buttermilk innoculate, 1/2 tab of microbial rennet.
It gelled up nice, cut into 3/8th curds. Stirred curds for 40 mins. while increasing temp from 88F to 100F. Stacked and milled for ~ 2 hrs.. Pressed at 10 lbs. for an hour, turned & pressed at 20lbs for another hour. Turned and pressed overnight (14 hrs) at around 200lbs and then a finishing press of 300 lbs. for 2 hours.

[DeejayDebi]

60 degree is about the maximum you should let the cheese age at. Cheddar is best if aged slowly cold around 45 degrees. You could have over heated the cheese and started loosing butter fat not just whey.