Making cheddar today! pt 6

Here I've lined the mold with cheese cloth. This is so that the pressed cheese won't stick to the mold and fall all apart when I try to remove it from the press. Next I loaded the milled/salted curd into the mold. You can see that whey has already started to drain out just from the mold packing process. I then line the 'follower' (part that does the pressing) with cheese cloth and place it onto the curd. I find it extremely important to carefully line the mold and make sure that you minimize the cheese cloth overlapping to prevent large creases in the cheese. I still haven't figured a way of preventing the creases entirely but I did minimize them. Finally, I've show how ready the whey drains off under only 10 pounds.

Farmhouse cheddar in 2# size is pressed in 3 phases:

1. 10 #'s for 10 min
2. 20 #'s for 10 min
3. 50 #'s for 12 hr

After the first press of 10 pounds I see very little whey drain off but I do see the size shrink as air and small amounts of whey are pressed out.