Author Topic: Wayne...Stockpots, double boiler and bears oh my!  (Read 3781 times)

Offline Cartierusm

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Wayne...Stockpots, double boiler and bears oh my!
« on: December 24, 2008, 12:29:03 AM »
I was just in the shower, you know thinking about making cheese and it hit me. You and I are going to have the same problem sooner or later. We both want to make large wheels. I know I have enough pots for the milk itself but I don't want to spend any money on the double boiler then it came to me...the bathtub!! My bath tub can hold about 3 kegs, so I'll just use 3 kegs converted to pots and use some submersible heating elements to control the heat....it's brillant. Kind of weird working in the bathroom but oh well. Right now I'm figuring out volume calculations for uncompressed curds and compressed to see what mold I would need for a 30-40 pounds wheel.

Cheese Head

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Re: Wayne...Stockpots, double boiler and bears oh my!
« Reply #1 on: December 24, 2008, 12:42:23 AM »
Have fun guys!

Bathtub cheese is not so popular in California ::).

Then again I do like Cheetos:


Offline Cartierusm

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Re: Wayne...Stockpots, double boiler and bears oh my!
« Reply #2 on: December 24, 2008, 01:08:30 AM »
Should I be turned on...cause I am. Cheese Head, I woudn't make the cheese in the bath tub just use the bath tub as a double boiler, the pot would go in the tub.

wharris

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Re: Wayne...Stockpots, double boiler and bears oh my!
« Reply #3 on: December 24, 2008, 01:32:14 AM »
Using a bathtub does make technical sense,  But i'm not sure i can get over the mental image of what I have seen at the bottom of my tub. 

so,  no tub for me.


But what I find funny, is that you, like me,  never really stop thinking, never stop tinkering.

And finding a purpose, and outlet, for that creative energy, is part of what attracts me to cheese and wine making.

Getting back to stockpots,  i will be satisfied (I think) to make a 10Kg wheel. 
That means 22 gallons of milk. 
So,  a 25 gallon stockpot will be ideal for me.
like this one.

now,  how will i heat it?
How will i drain it?
How will i pour it out?


All things to tinker about.


:)

good times.




Offline Cartierusm

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Re: Wayne...Stockpots, double boiler and bears oh my!
« Reply #4 on: December 24, 2008, 04:38:14 AM »
The pot you linked to offers a hole drilling service. I said in another post, I think, add a weldless ball valve to drain the whey, the way professional do, and then you won't have to move the curds around. As for heating you could use a silicon heating blanket, but that might be expensive, I would guess about $200 - $250 as I've priced them for other applications and they go by the square inch. If I were you 20" is not that wide, just goto Target, scrap metal shops, anywhere you can think of and find a pan that big that's at least 6" tall. Then put 1" spacers on the bottom so the pot doesn't touch and use an outdoor burner, think turkey fryer (the end of the season is upon us and you should be able to find one cheap on sale or used on craigslist), and heat it up that way. I would insulate the rest of the pot that isn't in the water bath with some of that aluminum bubblewrap they sell at hardware stores to wrap air ducts in. I use it all the time to insulate kettles I'm Boiling.

Link to weldless ball valve http://morebeer.com/view_product/19793//Weldless_Spigot_-_Stainless

P.S. I was just thinking if you could find a used jacketed vat (tank) for wine making, that would be perfect. Then it has dual purpose you could use it for wine as well, less yelling from the misses.

On that note you could also do what some wine makers use when their tanks are not jacketed they use an immersion plate, seen here http://morewinemaking.com/view_product/19738//Weldless_Wine_Cooling_Plate_Kit_-_10.6in._x_24_in. or use a cooling snake, same principle but more expensive. Use your imagination, just get like 8 feet of 1" flexible food grade tubing and hook it up to a fountain pump or cheap pump from harbor freight and put it in a large 33 gallon rubbermaid (hard plastic one) and then put the heating element in there and have it pump the hot (warm) water through the tubing and back to the reservoir, while the tubing is in a spiral coil in the pot.

Offline Cartierusm

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Re: Wayne...Stockpots, double boiler and bears oh my!
« Reply #5 on: December 24, 2008, 04:53:51 AM »
Or, I was just looking on craigslist for a vat or tank and when I typed in tank, fish tanks came up. A fish tank has to be food grade so the fish don't get poisionous things leeching into the water, but I don't know if I would want to use a used fish tank, but 50 gallon tanks new are only $119 from Petsmart.

Offline Cartierusm

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Re: Wayne...Stockpots, double boiler and bears oh my!
« Reply #6 on: December 26, 2008, 07:48:08 PM »
This task is turning out to be harder than I originally anticipated. The glass fish tank is out as I don't know if any manufactrer could say at temps of 130 that it's food safe, and it's glass, it's probably pretty tuff stuff but I don't want to lug it around.

I thought of everything even buying Stainless Steel shelving from ebay for restaurants and welding it together but everything would cost way too much. So I back to using just a keg (15 gallon) and I'll see what that can do. I've got an old fermenter I had for wine making that I could screw some heating elements into. So I'll see how that goes.

P.S. US Plastics sell plastic tanks Polypropelene that are food safe and are around 50-70 gallons that would work but I don't know what shipping would be. They are around $200.

Offline Cartierusm

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Re: Wayne...Stockpots, double boiler and bears oh my!
« Reply #7 on: December 27, 2008, 06:12:35 AM »
What an ordeal. Ok today I took the keg I had cut years ago as a kettle and flushed up the inside and welded over the handles and weep holes so the keg is one entire leakproof vessel, it will probably hold 18 gallons. I'll measure tomorrow it got dark here and couldn't measure. Took hours to grind and weld and shape. I would hate to have to do it again, but alas I do to the other keg I have. I plan on using both to make 30 gallon batches. Both cooking in the same double boiler at the same time so they should come out exactly the same then I'll co-mingle them and press. I'm just trying to find a vessel to use as the double boiler. I bought a large rubbermade bin and it holds water but with all that weight it's a little flimsy. It probably would work but if it burst in my kitchen 50 gallons of water would wash me away. Now I'm looking at a small version of the grape bins they use to transport. A company makes a moving box like a rubbermaid but a lot beefer but lowe's only has the small size. So I'll keep looking, for now I'm just going to make the 15-17 gallon batch and see how big the wheel is.