Cheese Follower

[Cartierusm]

Here's the new cheese follower I made today. It has my last name in reverse so when it's pressed into the cheese it will emboss my name in it.

[chilipepper]

That is really cool!!  Do you have a CNC milling machine? What exactly is your profession that you have access to all these cool toys? I can't wait to see Picts of this in action and the finished product. Any chance you'd be interested in taking a cad or solidworks file and making a small business of this?  

[Cheese Head]

Congrats, that is a good idea, you are full of inventions!

[wharris]

How did you make it?  I've been thinking about one of these too.

[Cartierusm]

Yes I have a CNC machine. My profession, well, I kind of do a little of everything. I might be persuaded to make some up, I'll have to test mine first and see if it actually works. I mean it will emboss but will it hold.

[Tea]

Oh Cartier that is impressive and classy.      Boy I hope that works out, what a great idea.  If you do decide to sell some, you have a couple of orders here.
Excellent idea.

[Cartierusm]

I already have some design mods, such as I need some holes in it for the whey when I go to flip. But that's an easy remedy.

[Likesspace]

Very nice Cartier...very nice indeed!
As Tea said....if you do decide to start making these let me know. I'd be very interested in a couple of them.
Also......your curd knives are great. Likewise, I'd be interested in one of those, if I can afford one. You don't want to know what I'm using for my horizontal cuts right now, but it does work.
Thanks for the post and the pics. Quality work.

Dave

[Cartierusm]

The problem is I wouldn't know how to charge, If it were my regular clients it would be in the $100-$150 range for the follower and $400 for the curd knife as they take hours and hours to make, lots of welding and soldering. I'll have to think about it.

[chilipepper]

Another interesting thought would be to make a indented flat area on there to be able to put a date and style info on there.  What would really be cool as I was looking through all my wife's scrapbooking stuff... those little rubberstamp making supplies.  They have a bunch of rubberstanp letters and numbers that you can arrange to create your own sayings etc.  If you could shoehorn that in there someway that would be kind of a neat twist to be able to mould your cheese name and date made right into the cheese as well.

Of course all that will depend on how well your prototype works out.

Good luck and keep us posted.

[Cartierusm]

I already thought of that. The problem is the rubber is not food grade, 2nd. the rubber might not be hard enough or deep enough to make a good impression. I could machine out some number for the date, but that would make it really expensive for the regular guy.

[Likesspace]

Just a thought, but could you cover the rubber letters and numbers with saran wrap before putting it against the cheese? I used to use wood followers for pressing and always covered them with saran wrap.
As I'm sure you've noticed, once you put the weight on the cheese, impressions get made be it from the cheese cloth or the holes in the mold. If covered with saran wrap, I'm sure the plastic would form around the letters and still make the impression.
Or maybe I'm completely off base. I usually like to open my mouth before I've thought things out completely.

[Cartierusm]

Actually not a bad idea. The problem is it may also leave wrinkles where the plastic wrap bunches up. When I pull the stilton out of the mold on Monday I'll take pics of the emboss. Once I see the condition of the emboss I'll be able to judge which way togo. Personally, since I make them for myself and I don't charge myself, I would rather have food safe plastic and not mess with the other stuff.

But think about it do you really need the date on it. When the cheese is mature are you going to cut it up and give it friends, 'cause if you do then it really doesn't matter. It only becomes necessary if you'll be aging for years. I'm not sure what I want to do. I've just built a new cheese cave out of an upright freezer. I guess I can use tags, but I'm not sure.

How about a poll, since you'll have to use the embossed follower with an open hoop so you can flip with the embossed follower over and use it on the bottom would you people want both bottom and follwer with the embossing? So your name or message in on both sides?

[Cartierusm]

Here is the embossing on a Stilton. It came out perfect. Note on a silton it's not pressed, althought I press it for the first day at 8 pounds, so it holds fine. On harder cheese you'll definately have no problem.

[wharris]

WOW!

Congrats!!!