All cheeses made from 5l whole cow milk from same shop to same recipe.
My first is the red waxed one top left: notably smaller as I bogged up the entire recipe. We've tried it by cutting an eighth before waxing. OK taste a bit too salty, curds a bit too large so some small voids. Had mold problems that you can see from my postings (yellow, blue and brown)
Second is bottom left one. First time i got the recipe right. Aging ok-->well. Far less mold problems but still some. A bit rubbery, slow to develop rind as too humid in fridge and possibly although it had 40lb of pressure it wasnt being applied appropriately.
Third is bottom central. Bogged up the recipe again had very fine curds that I had to rescue to get anything. But using new press found better pressure meant less water in cheese and earlier rind development.
And here we need to talk about top central cheese aka the mongrel. I began to get too many curds for the mould in cheeses 2 & 3 from 5 l so I squished em all together :-) I got a mini gouda accepted, with a wildly different fluid balance top to bottom to start off with but its now settling down. Started using salt to lower humidity in fridge, visual improvement in rind development almost immediately.
Fourth is bottom right. As a result of getting the recipe right more often I was getting more curds (also the new draining bag was clearly more efficient) so I switched to a normal mould as opposed to the gouda mould (which is cute) but not really the right size for 5l of milk - slightly (25%) too small. With the better press the cheese was dryer from word one, it has continued aging well if not better than significantly older cheeses. It is denser, weeps less and probably will have less mold issues.
But note the size and rind differences as you eliminate mistakes!
Sal
