Please cheesemaking gurus, give me your opinions?
http://cgi.ebay.com/Complete-Cheese-Press-Kit-4-6-Hoops-with-Culture_W0QQitemZ120510287333QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item1c0ef90de5 (http://cgi.ebay.com/Complete-Cheese-Press-Kit-4-6-Hoops-with-Culture_W0QQitemZ120510287333QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item1c0ef90de5)
You will have to replace the pressure bolt to 1/2 or better or it will drive you nuts with lopsided cheeses. You can build that for about $20 and build it better. For what they sell for that's not a bad price.
Quote from: RadioFlyer on December 28, 2009, 01:28:26 AM
Please cheesemaking gurus, give me your opinions?
http://cgi.ebay.com/Complete-Cheese-Press-Kit-4-6-Hoops-with-Culture_W0QQitemZ120510287333QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item1c0ef90de5 (http://cgi.ebay.com/Complete-Cheese-Press-Kit-4-6-Hoops-with-Culture_W0QQitemZ120510287333QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item1c0ef90de5)
A spring loaded cheese press is the worst option, first - you'll never know the innitial pressing weight and second - that pressure will not stay consistent as the cheese looses height and the spring gets less loaded.
Untill you'll buy or build a basic dutch lever press that is the most efficient as you can apply great loads with less weight, you may want to try to build yourself e very simple and cheap press that you can load with known weight.
http://images.google.co.il/imgres?imgurl=http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__S20sBQOkCg/SdYSE3S6aTI/AAAAAAAAACc/IKm8CWe_ydQ/s320/IMG_0822.JPG&imgrefurl=https://cheesemaker-marvin.blogspot.com/2009/04/easy-to-build-cheese-press-for-cheap.html&usg=__UHTFEYIxDTWAslOwuGmMouKbdiI=&h=240&w=320&sz=8&hl=en&start=347&um=1&tbnid=sB0qvkmGB1zVeM:&tbnh=89&tbnw=118&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dcheese%2Bpress%26ndsp%3D20%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26start%3D340%26um%3D1 (http://images.google.co.il/imgres?imgurl=http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__S20sBQOkCg/SdYSE3S6aTI/AAAAAAAAACc/IKm8CWe_ydQ/s320/IMG_0822.JPG&imgrefurl=https://cheesemaker-marvin.blogspot.com/2009/04/easy-to-build-cheese-press-for-cheap.html&usg=__UHTFEYIxDTWAslOwuGmMouKbdiI=&h=240&w=320&sz=8&hl=en&start=347&um=1&tbnid=sB0qvkmGB1zVeM:&tbnh=89&tbnw=118&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dcheese%2Bpress%26ndsp%3D20%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26start%3D340%26um%3D1)
Press on: plan posted by the Fias Co Farm and you'll be forwarded to the instructions.
Have fun and good luck
Does anyone know of good suppliers for simple, affordable, but effective cheese presses?
We would really like to carry these in our store. Even good designs for something simple would be useful: If nothing else we could get a carpenter to build a batch of them if we found a good design.
This is the press I have. I'm a novice - I'm just coming up to my one year cheese birthday. The "Capri Artisan" cheese press is okay. As mentioned above there is a tendency for lopsided cheeses if the form is not centered or the initial pressing is too firm.
http://www.ableoaksdairygoats.com/press.html (http://www.ableoaksdairygoats.com/press.html)
The press I bought is slightly defective; the hole through the horizontal wood clamp that the all-thread goes through is not perpendicular; and this, of course, leads to lopsided cheeses. I contacted the manufacturer about this and asked for a replacement but they never made good on sending me one.
Because they didn't honor their warranty against defective parts I can not recommend you buy this press.
You can build one of those for about $10 to $15 and parts for the hardware store. If you do I'd build it something like this. The ones they sell have really flimsy pressure rods. Beef it up to 1/2 inch vice 1/4 inch.
You can build a Dutch press for a little more and about the same amount of effort.
I agree with Sailor. These commercial presses will be outgrown in no time the Dutch style will grow with you.