My new cheese cooker

[micah]

I recently fabricated a cheese bath cooker.  Here are some pictures.

The tub and lid I bought at Cash & Carry.
The SS warming tray and lid I got used at a restaurant supply store.
I had, left over from a home brewing project, a 1500 w 120 vac heating element.
Not pictured is a 5 gpm immersible aquarium pump to help with avoiding stratification in the bath.

The tub lid was cut out so that the lip of warming tray rests on it.

What I learned from my first use of the system is that I need a second thermometer in the water bath to complement the one that is in the milk.  At one point I overshot a target temperature because the milk temperature continued to rise due to the bath being to hot.

My only real gripe is that pouring off the whey is difficult because the warming tray does not have handles.  I plan on mounting drawer pulls to save my finger nails and tips.

[Cheese Head]

micah, great work/construction!

Good idea on the drawer pools to lift up the warming tray, another way would be to cut a notch on each end in the tub lid so that you can save your finger nails.

Also, to make it lighter, member DeejayDebi in her warming tray uses a plastic mat to move the curds away from the end wall and then a syphon tube to remove most of the whey. You can see it in a couple of her pictures.

[FarmerJd]

Great setup. I ran into the same situation with my cooker. i have learned that if I want my milk at a certain temp, I need the water to be 1-2 degrees higher. So when I am raising milk to 102 degrees I stop the heater when the water reaches 104. I have not had a problem with the water not self-circulating since the heater is on the bottom and the hot water rises up the sides but I could see that advantage in having a pump. I found a immersible thermostat to regulate the water temp automatically for me but I have not bought it yet. Good luck with your cooker. By the way how much does it hold?

[micah]

I like the siphon idea.  No idea why I didn't think of it as I have tons of different diameter food grade tubing I use for beer/wine.  Siphoning most of the whey out will make the drawer pulls unnecessary I suspect.

The warming tray is 12" x 20" x 6.5" (W x L x D).

In my first run I comfortably cooked 4 gallons.  5 gallons would be doable.

Here's a picture with the 4 gallons in it.

[DeejayDebi]

Very nice vat Micah! I am impressed you did a great job there.

[henscheese]

great looking vat set up Micha, until you get the draw handles attached you could try sliding a thin metal spatula or knife (not sharp) under the insert to lift it high enough to get your fingers under it. Used to have to do it this way when working in kitchens. Handles would be easier on the hands though.
Helen

[micah]

Thanks everybody for all the feedback and encouragement.  I enjoy building things like this (perhaps as much as I like using them).  I still need to encapsulate the electrical contact end of the heating element as there is the possibility of slopping water or whey on it.

I also have a microprocessor based circuit board I built for controlling the temperature of fermenting beer that I could easily use for turning the heating element on and off.  I'll have to rewrite the firmware a little so it displays two temperatures (bath & cheese) simultaneously.  Oh, and program in stepped temperature risings (e.g., 86F to 101F over 30 minutes, etc.).  I'll let you all know how it goes.

[FarmerJd]

I am very interested in the thermostat you are designing. My heating element is 2500w 240v because the 1500w 120v element did not heat the water and milk fast enough. (24 gallons of milk and about 12 gal of water.) If you can duplicate it and it works I would love to contract you to make one. I just use my breaker and thermometer right now.

I used a pvc "90" joint and a short piece of 1.5 inch pipe to encapsulate my element end. I am attaching a pic and you can see the pipe on the right side. Since taking this pic I have changed it out with a piece of insulating foam and electrical tape. Just throwing out ideas for you. Sounds like you are a pretty good problem solver yourself.

[micah]

I am very interested in the thermostat you are designing. My heating element is 2500w 240v because the 1500w 120v element did not heat the water and milk fast enough. (24 gallons of milk and about 12 gal of water.) If you can duplicate it and it works I would love to contract you to make one. I just use my breaker and thermometer right now.

The "thermostat" I built is totally overkill.  It is a custom built circuit board with an AMD microprocessor, analog to digital converters (for thermistors), relay switches to turn things (like heating elements or freezers) on and off, and a serial connection to interface with a computer for displaying status and programming the firmware.  It was a good exercise but I doubt I'd do it again.  I did have two functioning boards at one time but I fried one with a faulty power supply.  The unit is boxed up right now but I'll dig it out soon and post a shot of it.

I used a pvc "90" joint and a short piece of 1.5 inch pipe to encapsulate my element end. I am attaching a pic and you can see the pipe on the right side. Since taking this pic I have changed it out with a piece of insulating foam and electrical tape. Just throwing out ideas for you. Sounds like you are a pretty good problem solver yourself.

Your bath is similar to my beer kettle and hot liquor tank.  Pictures below.  You can see what I did with the cord connections.  I decided to use the smaller 240 VAC plugs rather than the dryer ones.  The HLT is insulated; you might want to do this with your pot as it is so large.

Did you ever try a 2000 Watt 120 VAC element?  I've got one but the 1500 seems to work well enough for my size bath.  You might consider something like this for control (but for 240 VAC devices):

http://www.rancoetc.com/ranco-etc111100000-digital-temperature-controller010v-output-p-97.html

You could also mount two 1500 Watt 120 VACs. 

[FarmerJd]

I have actually considered installing both elements (120 and 240) so that I could heat faster at times (such as bringing cold milk to 88 degrees-- forever!) but I could also heat smaller amounts slower (like 10-15 gallon batches) that heat too fast with the 240v. Are you suggesting the 2 1500w 120v just because of ease of use or compatibility with a thermostat?

Thanks for the link. I wish I had a little more knowledge of circuit board structure and applications. I am sure I could get lost for weeks tinkering with it. I don't think I will ever insulate the tank because the temperature differential with the room temp is never more than about 25 degrees so there isn't alot of heat flow. I only use it for cheese.

[micah]

Are you suggesting the 2 1500w 120v just because of ease of use or compatibility with a thermostat?

No.  Sometimes 120 vac just doesn't cut it.  I use 240 vac elements for brewing beer because I need the power (like you do).  I will say that 240 vac near liquid is scary.  I have my tuns well grounded and hooked up to spendy gfi breakers.  But if one can get away with the lower voltage it is definitely safer and more portable.

You got me interested in taking a closer look at the Ranco controllers as I'd like something  that could switch on/off (for heating and cooling) at both 120 and 240.  Some of the Ranco spec sheets show 240 vac devices being controlled.  It looks like one can also hook up external relay switches.  I've got an email in to them to clarify this as none of the spec sheets explain how this is done. 

http://www.rancoetc.com/which-etc-model-need-a-6.html

The external relay idea (if 240 vac devices can't be triggered) might be a good solution for you.  It is fairly easy to use a relay.  Basically a low vdc signal triggers the relay to turn it on/off.  I currently use one for my brew kettle.  I built a circuit board (based on a "timer" chip) with a potentiometer so that I don't have to have my element going at full blast all the time.  I can turn the knob and control the element to be off or on full or anywhere in between.  Here's a picture of the solid state relay and the circuit board.  The red light indicates that the board is on while the green light indicates if the relay is on.  The relay is attached to a heatsink I got at a used computer store (relays generate a bit of heat).

[DeejayDebi]

Hey Micah how about using a bulkhead fitting with a ball valve and hose out the bottom?

[micah]

Hey Micah how about using a bulkhead fitting with a ball valve and hose out the bottom?

Do you mean for removing the whey?  I think the siphon method will be okay.  The fewer holes I have to worry about the better.  And I fear the curds would clog the drain hole quite easily unless a ring of some sort were employed.

I took a look at your smoking site and passed it along to a friend of mine who is quite the smoker.  We made 40 lbs of Elk landjaeger a couple of weeks ago.  Sixty more to go...

[wharris]

All I can say is holy mackeral. 


I have so many questions....
I will add that I used the following formula to calculate how much heater I needed in my water bath.
So for me,  It worked like this.
I had 100gallons of water.  (milk and water bath)
I need that to be able to go from 100 to 124 degrees in 45 min.
So that worked out to
[(100*24)/(372*.75)]X1000=8602watts

That gave me a rough idea of what I needed. So I decided to go with (5) 2000watt heaters.  I have 10,000watts of heat being pulled for short periods of time.

[wharris]

I am considering putting my heaters through the walls of my water bath.  What fittings, o-rings, sealants etc. did you all use to penetrate the walls of your water bath vessels?