Carter, first off, thanks for the advice on the fridge. I do have a compressor style but the thermostat is really low grade. From the minimum to the maxium setting the temp change is only 3 degrees (from 48 to 51). Maybe that's simply how a wine fridge should operate but I would think that whites should be cooler than 48 degrees.
I'm going to give your idea some thought on putting a digital thermostat on one of these and see how it goes. Surely it can't be too hard to wire it in (yeah right....I'm totally incompetent when it comes to anything electrical).
As for my Stilton recipe, I got it off of
http://www.schmidling.com.
Even though I use this recipe for making the Stilton I've done a lot of extra reading on the subject and have found that many people have had problems from aging their cheese at too high of a temp. On the Schmidling website he says to keep the cheese at 60 degrees F for the first month but when I tried that I got a completely overpowering ammonia smell which I've since found out comes from ripening way too quickly.
I've had my best luck at about 48 degrees which is what I finally got my fridge at as of today. This used to be the minimum setting on this fridge, but now all of a sudden it's turned into the maxium setting. I'm not sure what's going on with it.
Anyway, the schmidling recipe has been a good starting point for me but I keep playing with the aging to see if I can turn out a better quality. I think any of the recipes will make a good cheese, it's just refining the process to your own situation that will make a great cheese.
Btw....thanks for taking the time to talk to me tonight. You cleared up a lot of questions that I had on the press. I really appreciate it.
Dave