Hi Erik.
Well, I wish I had answer(s) for you, but I'm not sure that I do. Clearly, you have too much moisture in the cheese. As you know critters works much faster in the moist environment whether it is a bread dough or cheese. So if you age that cheese according to the recipe you may end up with overripe cheese. Perhaps bitter aftertaste and such.
The best thing to do would be to head over to the Cheddar forum and read the Cheddar related posts. I haven't made a Cheddar myself yet as it requires a very strong press. From what I understand much stronger than what the Spring Based presses can muster. So I'm holding off on Cheddar until I build my own Dutch Style Cheese Press.