We are making a Double Gloucester, using the recipe in the "200 Recipes" book, and of course her suggestions for pressing are pretty extreme for the home cheesemaker.... We are using the NEC Medium Hard mould, which has a follower that is 5.5" in diameter, or 24 sq.in.... We pressed at 10 lbs. for 30 min, 20 lbs. for an hour, and 40 lbs. for 2 hours, and the rind is not quite fully knit.... It is now in the press, maxed out at 85 lbs. (~ 3.5 psi), for overnight (~ 12 hrs.).... It is a spring type press, but there is so little whey coming out now, it requires very little adjustment, so should hold that pressure well.... If I get up in the middle of the night I will check it to make sure....
What do you think of my pressing routine, for what is basically a Cheddar type?.... Should I use more pressure sooner, or does it sound about right?.... Any other suggestions would be helpful.... I don't have a way to measure the pH....
Bob
With a cheddared cheese, the whey drains during the cheddaring process. It's hard to believe sometimes, but pressing doesn't actually help the cheese drain whey very much. In fact, it often does the opposite. If you close the rind before it has finished draining, the whey can't get out and you end up with a bit of a water balloon. This can cause all sorts of problems when aging. For this reason you should start off with a light weight and only increase the weight so that you close the rind in about 2 hours. Caldwell suggests only pressing so that beads of whey appear on the outside of the mold. If whey flows, then you are pressing too hard.
In the case of a cheddared cheeses, though, the whey has already drained for the most part (depending on how long you cheddared it). In that case you want to use a small amount of weight so that *air* can get out before you close the rind. Instead of a water balloon, you get an air balloon :-) ("mechanical holes"). Again, it's opposite to what you might think -- if you press too hard at the beginning you end up with holes in your cheese.
After that, you want to press the cheese enough to close the rind. Because a cheddared cheese is a low pH, the rind doesn't close easily. Once again, it seems strange, but the ability to close the is dependent upon the pH of the curds, the temperature and the moisture level, but pH is the most important. You've also already drained the cheese *and* salted it, so it is also low moisture level and unless your room is quite warm, the curd may be quite cool. All of those things mean that you have to press very hard. How hard? Commercial producers put tonnes on it -- literally. You can't over press a cheddared cheese.
Anyway, I hope that helps. I can't tell you whether or not what you did will work out because it really depends. I often wish that recipes didn't include pressing weights because they are really misleading. They can be completely wrong if your cheese is different than the author's and it can make quite a bit difference. Cheddared cheeses are fairly benign, though. If it doesn't close, then warm it up and try again.
I agree with Mike.
My unsuccessful pressed cheeses were following the weight guides in recipes. My successful pressed cheeses are the ones where I stopped pressing when little beads of whey came out the mould holes and then slowly increased the pressure to maintain this level of whey release and going all out for the overnight press.
Thanks for your suggestions.... As per your previous suggestions, Mike, I started out very light, and had a small stream of whey (out of the draining tray, not at the holes) with only a 2-3 lbs. of weight, and once that reduced to a stream of drops, I gradually increased the weight to 10 lbs (less than 1/2 psi).... I was at 10 lbs. within maybe 5 minutes, and then followed the procedure above.... I sounds like I should shorten the pressing stages, to achieve a knit within 2 hours.... The problem is that you can't see what is going on inside the mould....
Once I had been at 10 lbs. for 15 min. the drops were forming very slowly at the holes in the mould, in fact only a few drops a minute from the tray.... Should I have increased the pressure at that stage, and still turned the cheese and redressed it at 30 min., or should I have redressed it at 15 min. and then increased the weight to 20 lbs.?.... As long as I am only getting drops slowly weeping from the holes in the mould, can I keep increasing the pressure?....
I almost sounds like I should redress at, say, 1/2 psi, 1 psi, and 2 psi?.... How fast is too fast?.... How long between redressing the cheese?.... I know this depends on the cheese, but when this is the first of that type it is hard to know how to achieve a knit at the 2 hour mark....
The good news is that after the overnight pressing at 85 lbs (3.5 psi) for 11 hours the cheese knit perfectly.... 8)
(https://hosting.photobucket.com/images/oo221/rsterne/Double_Gloucester_131220_Email.JPG?width=1920&height=1080&fit=bounds) (https://app.photobucket.com/u/rsterne/a/51b71c5f-e26c-457c-b4e4-d8c7586aae7d/p/cf009e80-d4b9-4c23-ac66-2c308158ff1b)
It weighs 2.25 lbs, just out of the press, which is nearly a 12% yield (before drying and aging)....
Bob
Looks fantastic. The proof of the pudding is in the eating :-) It's just experience, unfortunately. As you make more and more cheeses you'll get a feel for how much pressure you should be putting on the cheese. Cheddared cheeses are by far the trickiest ones I think because the curd has already drained and so it's hard to know how much weight to put on to close the gaps. Also, with other cheeses, you can consolidate the curds under the whey and then move the "tomme" to the mold in one piece. That ensures that you will get no air gaps in the middle (because it will suck itself closed as it drains). However, you can't use that trick for a cheddar. On the plus side, the curds have already drained so there are many less problems with over pressing (assuming you have cheddared enough). Essentially you can stack up the weight as high as you can and it will be fine. One other target I've heard of for cheddars is 8 psi, but that's nearly impossible for home cheese makers!