Hi. I'm Susan from Walkerton, IN. I manage a small herd of organic dairy cows, wholly owned and operated by about 50 families, so that we can have our own fresh raw milk. Sale of raw milk is illegal in Indiana. I own two shares and get about four to six gallons of milk per week. I make a LOT of cheese, mostly cottage cheese, mozzarella and ricotta. I also make Caerphilly. Many failures trying to do Cheddar.
I'm hoping to learn from all of you. :)
Welcome to the Group. I am from Ohio.
Cheddar is a tough cheese to conquer. Congrats on having access to raw milk. I am envious
High Susan in Indiana, welcome to the forum.
Congrats and looking forward to advice / pictures of your Cottage, Mozzarella, Ricotta & Caerphilly. Newbie to this forum but not to cheese making!
I'm still trying to master the simpler cheeses ;D, making Feta right now based on this recipe (https://cheeseforum.org/Recipes/Recipe_Feta.htm). John in Houston Texas.
So any advice on the Cheddar? I am ordering a custom horizontal curd knife, because I know uneven curds is a big part of my problem. Which brings up the question - how do you all do your horizontal cuts?
Susan, sorry but I've never tried to make Cheddar :-\.
Depending on where you think your problems are, why don't you post your ingredients, methods and problems in the General Methods Board (https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/board,144.0.html) or in the Cheddared/Milled Cheese Board (https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/board,71.0.html)?
For cutting curds I use this method (https://cheeseforum.org/Making/Best_Practice_Cutting_Curd.htm), as do many others, and basically get imperfectly similar sized trapezoids, but I don't believe it has been a problem with the different cheeses I've made, albeit largest was US 4 gallon batch. FYI there are a lot of posts in the Equipment - Cheese Making Board (https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/board,18.0.html) about Curd Knives. Where and what are you ordered? FYI Member Carter makes them and advertises in the For Sale Wated Board, also there is a list of Supply Stores here (https://cheeseforum.org/Links/Stores_Cheese_Making_Supplies.htm).
Hope helps!
High Susan, welcome to the forum. Fresh milk - nothing like it in the world, congratulations
;D
svsiemers
I may get some disagreement here but IMHO and based on personal experience with my Cheddars it is easier to get a good clean cheddar with less weight and but increased pressing time than the go overboard with pressing weight. It is my belief that commercial cheese makers used higher pressing weight to speed up the process but they have the availability to add hydraulic presses with incredible pressing power.
Most Commercial operations use 20-55 psi on their cheese. Some even use a vacuum to draw out gasses out and ultimately obtain a closed curd.
Still others use no other pressure than the wieght of the curd itself in the form of a "curd tower".
A tower like this allows for the continual pouring of curd in at the top while cutting blocks of compressed curd off the bottom.
(http://www.begacheese.com.au/images/photos/blockformer2.jpg)
Wayne, neat picture, while I never thought about it, it makes sense, that tower of cheese would provide a good amount of pressure at bottom. 20-55 psi is a lot of pressure, for a 5 inch diameter cheese that's 125 to 344 pounds!
Continuous cheese, I'll have a good dream tonight!