Emmenthal, I think I'll make an Emmenthal.

[Caseus]

I have one of those. I think mine shrunk. The lid no longer fits all the way to the bottom. Instead, it gets stopped about one third or half way to the bottom.  I believe it used to cleanly touch the bottom.

So, what happened? I drop my mould, lid, and PlyBan (cut to mould size) into a pot of boiling water just before I put the curds in the mould. I think that caused the plastic to downsize. If I wanted to use this mould to make a Brie, I'd have some trouble. 

Anyone else have this problem? 

It looks like Ricki's Large M2 mold from cheesemaking.com.  Her site says that it is 7 and 3/4 inch diameter, but mine is brand new and unused and I just measured it at closer to 8 inch inside diameter.  The follower is a very tight fit.  I made the mistake of putting the follower in upside down for storage, and it got stuck and I had a heck of a time getting it out.  I don't have plyban, but if it is thicker than butter muslin, I very much doubt I could use it with my M2 mold.  It will be an extremely tight fit with butter muslin or cheesecloth.  And even though the mold is not described as tapered, it does get tighter at the bottom. 

The plastic molds look like HDPE.  They should hold up to boiling since the melting point is somewhere between 221 and 250, but personally I would not do that as I expect they would be soft enough to deform at the boiling point of water.   

[H-K-J]

Details are important - how much milk, how much starter, which ones, how much rennet, etc.

When you say that you pressed under whey at 15#. How? Did you use your press or do it in the make pot? You might want to consider "calibrating" your press with a scale so you know what you are really pressing.

Sailor, at the moment I am putting together my notes and will post all of the details soon, as far as calibrating the press, at each weight change I double checked with a scale before starting the press time, they were all within +/- 1#
I went ahead and re milled, then pressed with 400# pressure/7.487psi for 27hrs. and then just vacuum packed it and will just have to Waite now,
everyone's help is greatly appreciated, I ain't givin up on this yet just going to find another recipe 

[Boofer]

I like that. What a catchy name...Mystery Swiss. 

Swiss on the Dark Side....

Looks like your redo worked. Fingers crossed.

-Boofer-

[JeffHamm]

Nice recovery.  Sort of a Swiss Cantel (Swantell maybe?).  A cheese to you for keepin' on keepin' on.

- Jeff

[Boofer]

I think you're right, Jeff! Press, remill, and press again....

This might just be better than what you originally started doing. Time will tell. How long will you age it?

I would agree...a cheese for dogged persistence in the face of blinding defeat. 

-Boofer-

[H-K-J]

Thanks for the cheese guys
 sooo as promised here are the details of the complete mess (do not try this at home alone you need someone to freak-out with you  )

5 gallon raw unpasteurized milk
⅜-tsp. TA61
¼-tsp. LH100
⅛-tsp. PS
⅛-tsp. dry calf rennet
•   6:30 am. Milk out of fridge
•   8:30 am. sterilize equipment
•   9:15 am. Pour milk into double boiler, start heating (milk temp 58°f)
•   10:45 am. Milk temp 89.6°f sprinkled TA and LH cultures over surface of milk
•   10:55 am. Rehydrate cultures 10 min mix in (milk temp 90°f) let ripen 60 min.
•   11:30 am. Mix ⅛-tsp. dry calf rennet in ¼ cup distilled water
•   11:55 am. Sprinkled rennet over surface of milk, mixed in (temp 91.8°f)
•   12:09 pm. 14 min. floc time x 2.5 = 35 min.
•   12:44 pm. Cut curd ¼ in. let heal
•     1:00 pm. Started raising heat to 100°f slowly in 40 min.
•     1:40 pm. Continued to raise temp to 122°f slowly for 40 more minutes
•     2:20 pm. At 122°f let curd cook for 30 min.
•     2:50 pm. Curds pea/rice sized, drained whey from curd, placed curd in cloth lined mold
Using Dutch style lever press with an MA=5.676471, tare weight of 12-lbs.
•     3:10 pm. Pressed with 21-lbs pressure on mold in 120°f whey for 20 min.
•     3:30 pm. Flipped, redressed, repressed @ 30-lbs (on mold) in 115° whey for 20 min.
•     3:50 pm. Flipped, redressed, repressed dry @ 30-lbs (on mold) for 1-hr.
•     4:50 pm. Flipped, redressed, repressed @ 80-lbs (on mold) for 9-hrs. (was supposed to be
  8-hrs, slept in)
•     2:00 am. Should have been able to start the brine, I didn’t like how it felt or looked it had surface cracks, I decided to raise the pressure to 100-lbs on the mold, pressed it for 6-hrs. longer
•     8:00 am. Removed cheese from mold, no surface crack’s at this time, placed it in the brine
•   11:00 am. Carefully tried to turn the cheese over, it broke into pieces, at this time my wife freaked out! I didn’t notice this at first I was having a freak-out time of my own. After thing’s settled down a suggestion was made on the forum to re-mill and repress, as a last ditch effort and not coming up with anything else
•   12:00 pm. Re-milled, placed back in mold set in press and put 400-lbs. of pressure on the mold
•     4:00 pm. 28-hrs latter, removed cheese from press and mold, vacuum packed and hid in the cool room.

                                               Sooo, after all that, my conclusions are,

•   cooked to long, especially with the added heat time pressing under whey at 120°
•   took too long in draining the whey
•   took to long getting it in the mold
•   to light a pressure at the start
•   not enough at the end??
•   woulduh-shoulduh-coulduh   (I will post pics of the make latter)

Your comments are cordially invited.

Sort of a Swiss Cantel (Swantell maybe?).

Jeff, maybe I invented a new cheese

Boofer, I do believe if I forget about it, it will age awhile, if I don't, 2 to 3 months

[DeejayDebi]

Ah that press it a thing of beauty! Looks like you recovered well. Hope the innards meld as well as the outards did.

[beechercreature]

and here i though your press was overkill!

the repress looks great. i hope it tastes as nice as it looks.

[H-K-J]

I have taken the mystery out of the cool room and will age at 70+ degree's just to see if the PS is going to work
Figured what the heck

[JeffHamm]

I can't see why it wouldn't work.  It wouldn't get damaged by being repressed.  I'm curious to see if the cheese has the internal integrity to withstand being stretched by gass formation.  The ending of this mystery will eventually be good, I'm sure of it, but there will be surprises along the way.

- Jeff

[H-K-J]

After four days at around 71 deg. the cheese is sweating out fat inside the vacuum sealed bag, should this be something to be worried about?
I know I have read somewhere that it is normal?

[H-K-J]

I am seeing small openings on the surface of the cheese, inside the bag and the oils seem to be pressured out into the bag, starting to get spongy 
you can press on it and seems to come back, not much (if any) bulging as in PS pressure, keeping it at about 71 deg. + just waiting to see how the mystery Swiss is gonna do

[JeffHamm]

Can you set your camera on macro to get some close up shots?  It could be that the paste is just not stretchy enough, and the pressure is just creating blow holes.  Having never tried a swiss make myself, it could be that I'm just creating a blow hole here, so take comments with a high salt gradient in mind.    Anyway, if you can get some pictures of the rind openings and such then people with more knowledge than I might be able to figure out what's going on.

- Jeff

[H-K-J]

Jeff, here is what it looks like, one week at 71/+deg.

[steffb503]

I make Emmenthal quite often and I always let mine air dry for a few days @53 then into warm room @ 62 for 2 weeks. I will drop the temp if I see it sweating fat. I also do not vac seal until it is finished forming the eyes.
I am following Margret Morris's recipe in the cheese Makers  Manual