My first attempt at cheddar is a "stirred curd" cheddar. It is only a small cheese made from 4.5l of supermarket pasteurized/homogenized milk. Half a tsp of CaCl2 was added to help make a firmer curd. I've attached some pictures of the cheese at various stages of the pressing process using Sailor's "press in the pot" method. It was pressed "in the pot" first for 30 minutes at 10Kg, flipped and pressed "in the pot" for a further 30 minutes at 15Kg, then finally for 24 hours at 22Kg.
I am a bit concerned about the pH readings I took. The initial pH was 6.6, and had dropped to 6.5 at the point when I added the rennet. However, the pH had only dropped to 6.26 at the point when I drained the whey after scalding the curds. At this point I believe I should have been aiming at 6.1-6.2. The final pH of the whey expelled during curd cooking when the curds went into the mould was 6.02. Again I believe I should have been aiming at 5.9. Are these differences small enough to be ignored, or is it likely to have an adverse effect on the outcome of the final cheese? (or perhaps I am wrong about the pH targets?)
The cheese is now air drying at room temperature. Since it's a small cheese (519g/1lb 2oz) it has a large surface area to volume ratio and so will probably dry much faster than a larger cheese. What sort of drying time should I be looking at? It has already lost approximately 2% of it's original weight in the last 30 hours.