Calibrating the Cheese Press

Sheepy wanted to know how to calibrate the cheese press that her dad built. Since he built one for me, too (yay!) calibrating the scale was something I could do for her.

I needed a bathroom scale that fit on the base of the cheese press.

I used an old jar between the presser and the scale. Then I hung 5 lbs of weights on the left side of the lever and read the weight on the scale. I recorded it on the bottom of tape on the lever so I would know where to put the weights to get the pressure I needed for the cheese.

This is a photo of 15 lbs of weight on the closest spot.  It puts 32 lbs of pressure on the cheese. If you click on the photo to enlarge it, you can see the calibration weights.

Here are the weights I measured with 15 lbs of weights. 

Here is a photo of the front of the lever with the calibration markings for 10 lbs of weights on the top tape and 5 lbs of weights on the bottom tape.

Queso Fresco

I decided to try making some Queso Fresco because it looked like an easy cheese and I wanted to try out the new press and mold.

It is easy, and delicious!

2 gallons of milk ready to go in the pot. I love our new milk bottles! They are much easier to handle than 1/2 gallon canning jars.

This is the milk straight out of the milk fridge. If we keep our milk in sealed jars and at a low temperature, the raw goat's milk still tastes fresh on day 10!

Heat the milk to 90˚F. No, I didn't pasteurize it. I used raw milk and just heated it up.

I added 4 cubes of mesophilic starter that I had prepared and frozen from a mother culture. You can also add 1 packet of direct set starter if you don't have prepared starter. I haven't tried it with buttermilk or yogurt, but that might work, too. I'll save that experiment for when we are getting 5 gallons of milk a day.

Mix in the starter well (or stir gently until the frozen starter is melted.) I had to turn the heat on very low after adding the frozen starter to keep the temp around 90˚F.

Next add 1/4 teaspoon of liquid rennet that has been diluted in 1/4 cup of filtered, unchlorinated water. Stir gently with an up and down motion for about 1 minute until the rennet is completely mixed into the milk and starter.

Now go clean a bathroom (or whatever takes 30-45 minutes) until the milk sets up and you get a clean break. I let mine sit for an hour because I got distracted. It was fine!

Cut the curd into 1/4" pieces. I try really hard to get my curd that small, but it isn't a consistent size no matter what I do. I do the best I can and while I am stirring the curd, I break any that look too big into smaller chunks.

Stir the curd gently for 20 minutes slowly raising the temperature of the curds to 95˚F. This is the hardest part on an electric stove. Use the lowest setting and if there isn't a change in the temperature within 3 minutes, turn the heat up slightly. The reason you heat slowly is to release the whey from the curds, but it has to be slowly or the curd forms a 'rind' on the outside and doesn't let the whey out.

Turn off the heat and let the curds sit for 5 minutes.

Drain off the whey. I put the bowl on the floor (and sometimes a towel under the bowl) because it is easier to strain the whey off. I'm not quite tall enough to do this as gracefully in the sink. I use a spatter shield on the front of the pot to hold the curds in and let the whey out.

 The whey doesn't all come out on the first pouring. I have to sit the pot on the floor and stir the curds gently and repeat the pouring/stirring process a few times until the whey is drained. Sometimes I will pour the whey off, then sit a strainer in the top of a pot and gently pour the curds into the strainer. Then I can let the curds sit there for a bit while they drain.

Pour the curds back into the pot if you used a strainer and add about 2 Tablespoons of cheese salt (salt with no iodine). Let the curds and salt sit there at 95˚F for 30 minutes. I put my curds in my oven with the light on. You could also use a Wonderbox, or wrap the pot in towels to keep it warm.

After 30 minutes gently mix in anything you think would be tasty. Our first batch had 2 cans of diced green chilies in it. Our next batch was mixed with basil, garlic, and onion. I think it would have tasted wonderful in some lasagna or crumbled on top of spaghetti--but it didn't last that long.

Next line a mold with cheesecloth and fill it with the curds. This was the first time I used cheese cloth instead of buttermuslin to line the mold. The cheese cloth works much better! It is a lighter weight weave than the buttermuslin and is much easier to handle when putting the cheese into the mold. The follower fits in better, too, because there is less bulk.

Press at 35 pounds of pressure for 6 hours. I let our second batch go for 10 hours because I wasn't really paying attention when I started the cheese and what time I put it into the mold. It turned out fine.

This is the first cheese we made in the new press with the new mold and the new drain. I LOVE them! It makes the process so much nicer than my old game board press!

Remove the cheese from the mold and taste it! Yummy!

I wrapped some up for a few good friends to try. They all loved it! One said I should add pimentos, too. I told him I would show him how to make the cheese and he could add anything he liked!

You can store this fresh, pressed cheese in the fridge for up to 2 weeks, at least that is what we read. Ours never lasts that long!

A New Cheese Press

Sheepy's dad made me a cheese press. He made one for her, too.

I haven't gotten to try it out for pressing cheese yet. But I had an idea for using it to hang my chevre while it was draining! I also had a few minutes to gauge it using my weights and a bathroom scale.

Here's the link to my old cheese press. This one is much nicer and easier to use!

You can see the masking tape I wrote on to mark how much weight would be on the press. I decided I didn't want it to be permanent just in case I decide to use different weights.

I used an 'S' hook to hang my cheese from the end post. You can see in the previous picture how I put a pot beneath to catch the whey. I also had a book under the press so that the arm would be higher when I hung the cheese.

Cheese Press—Ugly, but it works

Here's what my cheese press looks like. Ugly, yes. Not a charming, handcrafted piece of art, just  pieces and parts found here and there, then jumbled together to press cheese.

All set up and pressing some Farmhouse Cheddar. The only 'real' piece of cheesemaking equipment is the cheese mold that my friend gave me. She found it in her mother's stash before she moved. She knew her mom would never use it, but that I would! Thanks, Friend!

From top to bottom in the photo above:

hand weights, game board with holes drilled in the corners for dowels to go through, old jam jar, follower (you can't see the follower, it's under the jam jar), a real cheese mold, upside down plate to keep the cheese out of the draining whey, cake pan, another game board with matching holes.

Here you can see the two game boards 

and my messy kitchen in the background.

The follower is an old candle lid. I took the cheese mold to the thrift store and tried everything round I could find to see what would fit inside and make a good follower. I'm not sure if glass is a great choice because it might break eventually.
I've been using it for about a year so far with no mishaps, I'll keep crossing my fingers!

 

Here is a better photo of the follower. It leaves cute little round circles on the top of the cheese. When I used a jar without a follower I had a ridge of cheese around the edge of the cheese as it came out of the mold. Not so appealing at all! The follower makes the cheese come out of the mold even to the edge, no trimming!

Hopefully you can see the circular ridges on the top of the cheese. They haven't caused any problems so at this point I don't worry about them. In fact, I pretend I've put them there on purpose.

The jam jar, which has a lid on it, fits just inside the large ridge (which would have been the outside of the candle lid) so it makes the top of the press more stable. That's the big drawback to this press--everything on the top board has to be balanced just right or I end up with lopsided cheese because one side was under more weight than the other.

Maybe one day I will have a great looking cheese press! And maybe one day Hubby or Son1 will cut out a wooden follower and I will have a flat surface to my cheese, but for now the circles are my 'signature', and so is the ugly cheese press!