test homemade press and first Colby

[Mrtatai83]

I tested my first colby yesterday and above all I tested my homemade press . I still had doubts about the resistance of the bar, but it held up very well, I could not press 100 lbs, but to tinker with some cheeses in my kitchen, it will be fine.



I followed the recipe given on cheesemaking, but since I don't have a C101 meso, I used MA4002 instead.
I'm poor at the moment, but I don't want to buy too many to let them go to waste, for the moment I have to get my hands dirty with what I have available.
My recipe was therefore:
5 liters of pasteurized semi-skimmed milk
3 liters of pasteurized whole milk
460 ml of full cream, 30%
(look for milk in France on May 1st, and apart from going to milk a cow in secret, you will have a lot of trouble)
8 ml of CaCL2 (10% solution)
1/4 teaspoon of MA4002
16 drops of rennet (bought in pharmacies)

For the steps, I followed the cheesemaking recipe step by step). I started with 2 pots, because I don't have one big enough.
I still managed to respect the temperatures and the deadlines and my curd was very good .








sorry, I did not take pictures of all the steps, I was very busy with my 2 cauldrons. and I skip putting the curd in the mold and washing it.
notice the improvised follower .
For the salting, I put it in brine, the recipe gives 8 hours, but I will leave it for 5 hours. the cheese is 1220 grams and it is quite flat. I don't want it to be too salty, that would be a shame.



The color of the brine is due to the gray salt I used, I filtered it before using it.
I still have the question of maturation, I have no wax available, so I am thinking of sealing it under vacuum, I would like to have the opinion of more experienced cheesemakers on this question
Then put it in my fridge transformed into a cheese cellar. I take advantage of it before the summer, after that it will become an aperitif fridge again, I have to find the same top fridge, without a frezzer, which will become the cheese cellar with a small change of thermostat.

[OzzieCheese]

 Nice press and cheese. Making your own press is like making your own light Sabre. Only then will a padawan learner you will no longer be. Though I have always though that some sort of scale needs adding to those designs to make sure the spring is being compressed to a constant height to ensure a constant force on the cheese.
I have not had a great deal of success with using vacuum bagging for long term maturing of small cheeses. The cheese still needs to breathe - I know that larger manufacturing uses vac bagging but their process has been refined to account for that. So I suppose my answer is "it depends". I have much better results - with these smaller cheeses - using wax, but only when the cheese has a really dry rind and using the softest of vacuum pressures. I find that cloth bandaging gives a better result. Yes it's a pain in the derrière but I feel it worth the extra work.

[Mrtatai83]

I will try to seal it anyway, it is a subject where it is difficult to find clear opinions, we find everything and its opposite in both directions.
in my case the sealing would allow me to store my cheeses more easily, my cellar is small. Even if I don't really intend to age dozens of cheeses at the same time. But possible that my family pushes the wheel now that they have tasted my saint-Félibrie

[Lancer99]

I would think that either waxing or vacuum sealing (or neither) would be fine, because it's meant to be a mild cheese, eaten after a month or so, so it probably won't make any difference whether the rind can breathe or not.

It looks great!

-L