For a while I pressed my cheeses in a mould made from a plastic bucket. Recently I've doubled the size of batch I typically make, so I needed a larger mould. I wanted to try using locally-sourced materials instead of plastic (part of my big-picture interest in developing a holistically sustainable lifestyle). Wood seems like the best option given that I need relatively high strength for cheddars (ruling out baskets and pottery). I had some trouble finding advice about how to do this online, so I thought I'd share what I learned through experimentation.
I initially tried a single thin piece of wood bent into a hoop. I believe it was 1/4" thick white ash. Although it was still green and I poured boiling water over it, I had a lot of trouble bending it into a small enough hoop to fit into my press and produce an appropriate diameter-to-height ratio for the amount of curd I'm making. I would also have needed to come up with a way to smooth the inside end and some way to bind the mould so that it wouldn't spring open. While my attempt was unsuccessful, I have found some pictures of old moulds of this type, so I'm sure it can be done if you know how.
My second attempt was based on the design of a wooden barrel. I made eight "staves" with edges angled so that they fit together into a regular octagon. The hardest part was figuring out what material to use to bind the staves together. I tried two rings of riveted sheet aluminum, but it was soft enough and the forces were large enough that the rivets tore slots into the aluminum. What I'm currently using is two rings of doubled used baler twine. When the twine is tight enough, the form is stable without any other fasteners, which means that when I'm done I can just pull off the twine and take the whole thing apart for washing. I'm not a fan of the reliance on plastic, but I think it can be replaced in the long term with a natural fibre cord; likely I'll just need to use a few more strands or a heavier cord. The twine tends to stretch and the knots slip, but this can be addressed by retying as tightly as possible before starting pressing and inserting opposing wedges under the twine during pressing when the cheese is out of the mould to be redressed.
A few refinements which are worth noting if you try this style of mould:
- My cheese press has a solid "floor" with channels carved across it. This mould has a completely separate bottom board. I drilled holes in it and carved channels in the underside that run perpendicular to the press's channels, allowing whey to escape.
- I initially had trouble with getting cheeses out of the mould. While it's always an option to pull off the twines and take the mould apart, that's a lot of bother to do in the middle of a pressing. To alleviate the sticking, I tapered each stave so that they're about 1/8" thinner at the top than at the bottom. Since the corner geometry and stave width is unaltered, this produces an octagonal prism on the outside (good because it's stable under pressure) and an octagonal frustum on the inside (which allows pushing the cheese out the top). I also added little teardrop channels into each drain hole on the inner surface because the cheese was pushing the cloth out into them and I thought this might be part of the sticking problem. While having smooth edges to the holes is important to prevent tearing the cloth, I don't think these channels are very important for helping with release.