My first pressed cheeses - Caerphilly and Double Gloucester

[Tiddlypom]

I have been interested in cheese for a while and made a couple of fettas a while back, also a camembert that died in the wine fridge when we were without power for 10 days... (a long story!). A year has gone by and it seemed time for another go, so I found and joined this forum a few weeks back at about the same time as I got a copy of the Tim Smith 'Making Artisan Cheese' book. I decided it was time to try a pressed cheese and hit on the Caerphilly because it needed least maturing time.

At the beginning of June I made my first Caerphilly with 8 litres of pasteurised non-homogenised Jersey milk. It seemed to go to plan apart from two things - it set up very quickly, within 10 minutes, and the curds didn't press together too well. After a couple of weeks I had mould getting into the deep cracks between the curds so made up some wax by mixing beeswax with coconut oil (making it up as I went along here...) and waxed it after clearing off as much mould as possible. Finally last Friday we tried it. By the rate the first quarter disappeared I know it had general family approval. I matured in the wine fridge after shifting some of the bottles aside, at 11C 

Here is the cheese during pressing, should it look as 'pitted' as this?


I made another mid June with less rennet but still set too quickly. Again it didn't press together very smoothly, so I waxed this one as soon as it had dried. It will be interesting to see how this one compares to the first, in a couple of weeks time. It is springier to the touch, through the wax, so no doubt moister inside.

In the meantime a friend has put me onto a source of raw milk so yesterday I made a Double Gloucester (Cotswold from the Tim Smith book, without the herbs) as that used to be a family favourite when we were in the UK. With the greater weight, this one has pressed together into a much smoother rind. Oh, and I finally spotted my error with the rennet - after adding it of course! - as I had my glasses on this time and could read the small print on the bottle which showed mine is a greater concentration than the recipe is set out for.

The DG is still pressing until 6pm tonight, here is my improvised cheese press (it has more water in it now for the final 50lb weight):


So, two questions arising from this which I would love some help with:
- is the pressed Caerphilly, with its pitted surface, what you would expect to see - or is it a result of using twice as much rennet as I should have used? The first had 3ml, the second only 2ml but still looked the same.
- re the Double Gloucester I have just made, I used 2ml in 8 litres, the bottle says max 2ml in 10 litres. Is this likely to affect my final result very much?

Thank you so much for all the wonderful information resources on here, not least the erratum to the DG recipe I just made, which I fortunately spotted before making it (salt was omitted from the recipe).

And finally, to give you a bit of a laugh and show you what my family has to endure - here are three of my recent projects: from left to right, beeswax - soap - Caerphilly cheese


Cheers!
Elaine

[Boofer]

Wow, looking at those pictures, you've really got to be sure which one you want to bite into! 

-Boofer-

[JeffHamm]

Hi Elaine,

Caerphilly should press together to form a good knit after the first day.  It's important to keep the curds warm when pressing.  In the image of the wax, soap, and cheese, it looks like the cheese is well pressed internally though.  Looks up "pressing in the pot" for Sailor's suggestion on how to improve the knit.  What is the diameter of your mold?  I use a 6 1/4 inch diameter mold, and press my caerphilly overnight with 15 kg (~33 lbs), and would probably do the next one with 20 kg.   Here's the section of my make notes concerning pressing (this was from a 10 L batch, numbers in brackets are the time of day, start and finish):
Pressing in the pot under 5 kg (2:20-2:30).
Flip, salt, and re-dress
Press in the pot under 5Kg (2:35-2:45)
Flip, salt, and re-dress
Press in the pot under 10.0 kg (20 min) (2:53-3:15)
Flip, salt, and re-dress
Press overnight under 15 kg. (using more weight as curds not knitting; must pack into press better?)
Weight out of pot 1.302 kg; knit good, with slight white lines indicating edges of some curds, but still a closed surface.

This resulted in a pretty good knit.  The early ones looked more like what you've posted (hence my note to myself about increasing the pressing weight to 15 kg as the recipe calls for overnight at 10 kg).

Anyway, as I say, the piece of cheese you posted looks really good, so perhaps it's just a matter of pulling your cheese cloth a bit tighter and keeping the curds warm?

As for the rennet, probably won't affect things too much, but I recommend looking up the "floc method" for determining amount of rennet and the time to cut the curds.  This will help you hone in on the amount of rennet to use.  Have fun!

- Jeff

[Tiddlypom]

Thanks Jeff, I'll check out those references.
My mould is 7" diameter, and I'm thinking I need to find something a little smaller. (I have just taken the Double Gloucester out, and it is only just over 1" deep.) I only used 15lb pressure overnight on the Caerphilly so can easily increase that - my recipe used 5, 10 and 15lb where yours uses kilos.

And I will read the 'floc method' more thoroughly. I scanned through it on my searches and decided I'd leave it for later, when I had a little more experience under my belt.... 

Finally, here's a better picture of the Caerphilly, though I think it only confirms what the smaller one showed, that it's actually not bad inside.

[JeffHamm]

The insides look great.  And yes, increase the press weights.  My mold is also smaller, so I'm putting more weight on a smaller surface, that means I'm putting more "lbs per square inch" on my cheese (despite having kilo's! ).

A clean knit on the outside makes it easier to deal with the mold.  It looks like you're doing well though.  Well done.

- Jeff

[Tiddlypom]

Finally found the Pressing in the Pot instructions, which I'll try next time. Just for reference, this is the link:
http://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,3221.0.html
So I can find it again easily if nothing else!

We are into fairly cool winter weather here (not cold by any means, 15C days and 5C nights) so I can imagine that would make quite a difference.

At this rate when I return the glass bottles from the raw milk I'll be getting some more while I'm there and making another cheese. I was thinking of doing one a fortnight but I don't like to keep their bottles that long and it's a fair drive over there. And anyway I'm rather fired up with ideas at the moment so it seems like a good time to have another go.

[DeejayDebi]

I think if I lived in you house I would insist on you using some form of food coloring in the soap. Looks way to much like the cheese!

[Tiddlypom]

Too right Debi, can't have it all looking quite that similar again I don't think!

I cut my second caerphilly a couple of days ago, mainly because I noted a large area of mould beneath the wax, and even breaking through it. Interestingly, there was a patch of soft squishy cheese at the mould site which was very tasty (I scooped out and ate it off the knife!). I smelled the mould, which smelt of mushrooms. I wonder if the mould that got in was similar to a brie/camembert mould as the taste and effect was similar. I was really chuffed to have some understanding of 'what went wrong' - or at least, what happened unexpectedly. I probably waxed this one a bit quickly, after air drying just a couple of days, and a bit more drying time wouldn't have gone amiss. But whatever, the result is similar to the first one and promises to be just as popular with the family.