CheeseForum.org » Forum

Quote from: Boofer on February 16, 2012, 03:34:47 PM

Quote from: Cloversmilker on February 15, 2012, 06:44:44 AM
It's weighing in at 5.5 pounds.

Wow, from 4 gallons of milk. Must be a significant amount of residual moisture/whey still in there. After air-drying a bit did you re-weigh it?

This should be a fairly moist cheese.  The description in Tim Smith's book says 'semi-soft'.  It has dropped a couple of ounces and may lose a couple more.  The yields from Clover's milk have been consistently high for the last couple of months.  The manchego from last week is weighing in at just over 5 pounds.  It also started with 4 gallons of milk. 

I'm getting the same high yields as we've gone into winter.

Quote from: JeffHamm on February 16, 2012, 06:52:14 AM
Hi smellysell,

Although most recipies you are likely to find in books will list how much weight to press your cheese.  Unfortunately, what is really important to keep things similar from one make to the next is how much pressure to put the cheese under.  Now, the two are related, but not the same thing.  Weight is what we're used to thinking of, pounds or kilograms (actually, pounds measures weight and kilograms is mass, which is why your weight changes when you go to the moon, you shed pounds, but your mass doesn't, you have the same kilograms.  This makes sense if you think of the two kinds of scales we have, spring scales and balance scales.  Pounds is measured by how far gravity stretches a spring and mass by how many standardized things you need to stack on the other side of the balance scale - hmmm, I'm digressing).

Anyway, for the practicle cheesemaker on earth, pounds and kilos are the same thing.  Pressure, however, encorporates information about how that weight is distributed over space.  So, if you have rectangle mould of 4 inches wide by 6 inches long by some amount high (the height doesn't matter), then the area of the follower is 4 x 6, or 24 square inches.  If you put 24 lbs on top of that follower, you would have your 24 pounds spread over 24 square inches, which means you have 1 pound for each square inch.  That "one pound for each square inch" is the pressure, and we would call this 1 PSI (Pounds per Square Inch).  Now, if I were to make the same cheese, but my mould was 4 x 4 inches, then the area is only 16 square inches.  If I put 24 lbs on top of that, I'm spreading the weight over a smaller area, so I would have 24 lbs/16 sqinch or 1.5 pounds per square inch, so 1.5 PSI.  For me to put my cheese under the same pressure as you, I would only need to put 16 lbs on top. 

Of course many moulds are circular, and this is where our highschool maths come in and we remember that Pi are square not round, meaning the area of a circle is calculated by Pi multiplied by the radius squared.  So if my round mould is 8 inches across at the widest point (the diameter), then it has a radius of 4 inches (half the diameter), so square that 4 for 16.  Pi, for our purposes is equal to 3.14, so 3.14 times 16 is 50.24, so the areas of my round mould is 50.24 square inches.  To get the 1 PSI that replicates the pressure of our original cheese means I now have to put 50.24 lbs on top of my cheese. 

If you search around, you'll find an excel book I've posted called "CheeseTools" and one of the pages is set up to calculate PSI for you if you enter the dimetions of your mould and the weight.  It can also tell you the amount of weight you would require to obtain a given PSI based upon your mould dimentions.

- Jeff

Ah, that makes sense.  Thank you!  For some reason I didn't think far enough to realize that the surface area would affect the amount of weight needed.

One more question, and then I promise I'll stop...

Is there an advantage to adding hot water to increase the temp rather than just adding heat to bump it up?

Quote from: smellysell on February 17, 2012, 04:01:03 AM



One more question, and then I promise I'll stop...

Is there an advantage to adding hot water to increase the temp rather than just adding heat to bump it up?

Ask away!  It's how we all learned. 

You must be asking about adding hot water to the curd vs applying external heat to the pot during the cooking process.  Yes, the two procedures have different effects on the final product.  Adding the water (called washing the curd) results in a smoother softer milder paste in the final cheese.  Gouda is perhaps the best known of the washed curd cheese types. 

Quote from: Cloversmilker on February 17, 2012, 06:03:29 AM

Quote from: smellysell on February 17, 2012, 04:01:03 AM
Is there an advantage to adding hot water to increase the temp rather than just adding heat to bump it up?

Adding the water (called washing the curd) results in a smoother softer milder paste in the final cheese.

I would just add, to clarify, that you're removing lactose (and lactic acid already formed).

-Boofer-

Quote from: Cloversmilker on February 17, 2012, 06:03:29 AM

Quote from: smellysell on February 17, 2012, 04:01:03 AM



One more question, and then I promise I'll stop...

Is there an advantage to adding hot water to increase the temp rather than just adding heat to bump it up?

Ask away!  It's how we all learned. 

You must be asking about adding hot water to the curd vs applying external heat to the pot during the cooking process.  Yes, the two procedures have different effects on the final product.  Adding the water (called washing the curd) results in a smoother softer milder paste in the final cheese.  Gouda is perhaps the best known of the washed curd cheese types.

Ahh, I see.  Always wondered what was meant by washing the curd.  Thanks for all the help.

Ok, I lied, one more question.  I've been reading up on using floc time with a factor, and want to try it on this instead of using the clean break.  Is the number you come up with counted after adding the rennet, or after floc occurs?

After rennet.

Quote from: Sailor Con Queso on February 20, 2012, 11:16:33 PM
After rennet.

That's what I figured, but wanted to make sure.  Thanks!

I have this ripening right now.  Thanks again for the recipe!

Can you post a picture of yours?   

Mine has finished air-drying with a weight just 1 oz shy of 5 pounds and is about to go into wax for aging. 

Quote from: Cloversmilker on February 26, 2012, 10:56:36 PM
Can you post a picture of yours?   

Mine has finished air-drying with a weight just 1 oz shy of 5 pounds and is about to go into wax for aging.

Of course.  Might be a bit ugly though as it's only my 3rd pressed cheese.  I only used 2 gallons of milk too.

This is the first wine marinated cheese I've made, so I'm curious about what others look like. 

Quote from: Cloversmilker on February 27, 2012, 03:32:05 AM
This is the first wine marinated cheese I've made, so I'm curious about what others look like.

Mine is in the mead bath right now.  Doing some googling to decide if I'm going to follow your day in day out day in routine or try something else.

Decided to just go with a 72 hours soak.