Hi all,

I find that cheese recipes tend to talk about pressing with a certain weight for a given mold size—for example, two-pound—but it isn’t clear to me what a two lb press mold is. This is especially the case because molds with a wide variety of diameters and heights could hold two lbs of cheese, and also since the presses that I have seen online talk about sizes in relation to number of gallons of milk that are initially used for the cheese, i.e., 2 or 5 gallons, rather than weights of the cheese itself.

Also, I’ve seen that the more expensive presses have PSI gauges and this clearly means that it isn’t simply weight that matters, but the amount of weight per square inch of cheese—I’m assuming the top surface here—though this is confusing in itself, as I can imagine a situation where a cheese could be spread more thinly in a wide mold, and would seem to require more weight to reach a given PSI, but would likely then over-press the cheese.  Picture the difference between Cantal and Comte where one is taller than it is wide, and the other is much wider than tall. At any rate, at the least, it seems to me that the presses that have a “50 lb” spring for both 2-gallon and 5-gallon cheese molds are not going to function properly as the top surface area of the 5-gallon cheese certainly will be larger, and therefore must require more weight to equal the same PSI as the 2-gallon cheese would. Is this all making sense?

What I am looking for is a chart, calculator, formula, or at least a “simple English” explanation that will help me to know how much weight to use on a given cheese, taking into account its dimensions, or at least its diameter, so that I can start with a known PSI and go from there.

Thank you in advance for your help.

Alan

Thanks for asking; I’ve wondered about this too.  My initial thoughts are that weight creates PSI, and that the pressure is evenly spread throughout the entire mass, regardless of size - since liquid cannot be compressed as air can.  The mass of the curd would likely affect the pressing time more than the pressure.

PSI is the main issue in commercial plants but since the home maker does not have all this fancy equipment, we learn by trial and error. If the recipe says 20 lb then I would use it and see what results u get (working on a 2to3x1 dimension ration).

Green Cheese Maker - 25 May 2008 11:02 AM

My initial thoughts are that weight creates PSI, and that the pressure is evenly spread throughout the entire mass, regardless of size - since liquid cannot be compressed as air can.  The mass of the curd would likely affect the pressing time more than the pressure.

Hi,

Thanks for your comments.

I agree that it is precisely because the given weight is spread throughout the entire mass that knowing more than most cheese recipes give is necessary, and that potentially this knowledge will lead us to the discovery that some cheese presses are less than optimal.  For example, if a recipe says press with 50 lbs for 12 hrs, then that should have a different impact on whey release and curd binding on two differently sized batches of cheeses.  Now, if the recipe said 50 lbs of weight for a cheese with a top surface area of about 28 square inches (a 6-inch diameter mold), which would be about 1.76 lbs PSI, at least we could attempt to scale up the actual weight if the area of the top surface of the cheese is larger—say 40 square inches which would give us about 70 lbs of total weight—and we could also start to get a feeling for how much milk to use to get a cheese thickness and final total cheese weight in line with our expectations.  Maybe for a mold of 28 square inches (which has about a 6 inch diameter), that would mean 2 gallons of milk.  I don’t know, but there has got to be some decent way to begin to calculate all of this.

Unfortunately, having a starting cheese curd weight and mold size would only be helpful to a degree since different cheeses start with different moisture levels and end with different levels as well.

There has got to be something online or in a book that touches on all of this.  Obviously some experimentation is in order, but with so many cheese makers out there, there have to be others that have wondered about similar issues.

I would love to begin working with hard cheeses, but before spending money on a poorly-designed press, I’d love to better understand all of this and feel confident in my decision.  For what it is worth, the press that I have been considering is:

http://www.hoeggergoatsupply.com/xcart/product.php?productid=3279&cat=35&page=1
with the optional PSI gauge:
http://www.hoeggergoatsupply.com/xcart/product.php?productid=3265&cat=35&page=1

However, I’m still not sure that there is nothing better out there.  What I am sure about is that some of the presses on the common cheese supply sites don’t allow precise regulation, require a lot more guesswork, and when it comes to the expandable ones that allow larger diameter molds, probably don’t allow for a high enough maximum weight if we were to accurately scale up the required weight based on the PSI required for the smaller cheese in a given recipe.

Again, any thoughts or comments are appreciated.

Best,

Alan