Cheddar, Traditional - Ridged Surface From Underpressing

[TommyTW15]

Hi,

This weekend i made a traditional cheddar with chilli. I followed Ricki Carrol's recipe as usual but made the addition of the chillies and dye. After the cheese came out the press i dipped in for one minute in hot water to seal the rind. It worked but after only one day i have large cracks. I have had these cracks on previous traditional cheddars but not to this extent. One thing i notice after following this recipe a couple of times is that after the curds have been cheddared and cubed they are very difficult to press. I only just manage to get all the cubes to press together and then they seem to crack appart while air drying.

This one is going straight into wax but any help would be great to eliminate this problem.

Thanks
Tom

[TommyTW15]

Photo of the cracks

[dthelmers]

What kind of press, and how much weight?

[TommyTW15]

Hi,

Below is the press that i use. As it is screw based i have no way to gauge how much pressure i am using so i have to basically guess.

[Tomer1]

It doesnt look like cracks since you can see the lines which seperate the curd chunks,
To me it looks like under pressing.
Chedder really needs ALOT of pressure, most recipes dont emphesis this enough since most wight stack\screw\spring presses available to home users cant reach the required pressures so they "make do",
Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesnt.

[dthelmers]

I made another cheddar yesterday and finally got a good knit. Tested my dutch press to the point of destruction again, this time just an eye hook unbending. Last time I cracked the wood out of my upright where the lever arm anchors. Reinforced everything and doubled up the lever arm. Got about 9 psi. The last time I had under 4 psi, and I could see the lines between the curds, more so as it dried; kind of looked like yours. It's still aging, so we'll see how it tastes. I vacuum sealed it since I didn't look like a good candidate for a natural rind.
Dave in CT

[TommyTW15]

Glad to hear i'm not alone with this. I literally could not wind the wretched thing down any further. If anything i was worried about overpressing. Its waxed and in the cave now so I will have to wait and see. I don't think its gonna be the most pleasant of cheeses anyhow. The recipe called for Jalapenos but I only had birds eye chillies. I tried one of the thin slithers of chilli on the outside of the rind after pressing and it was extremely hot!!!!