[Cheese] raw milk

[Jack Schmidling]

Linda Conroy wrote:
> For
> those who think they do not have access to raw milk or want
> information on raw milk you can go to realmilk.com.

Thanks for the heads up.  This will make lots of folks very happy.

> On another topic-Jack I was given your cheese press for a holiday
> gift-finally no more water weights or wine press!! I have one
> question-the molds i have used in the past have holes in them. Why
> did you choose not to put holes in yours and does this impact the
> cheese-either beneficially or negatively?

We started out with holes like every one else and then, as is usual for 
me, I had to find out if this really was a good idea as it entailed a 
lot of extra labor both in making the mold and in making cheese.

I became aware that commercial producers use stainless molds with no 
holes so this was a big clue.

With the holes you must use a cheese cloth to keep from producing 
noodles at the holes. This is an extra step which is a big pain and 
totally unnecessary for the first stage of pressing.

Without the holes, you can just dump the curds into the mold and start 
pressing.  There is enough leakage around the base of the mold for whey 
to drain out but not enough for curd to escape.

After the cheese has been pressed to the point that it can stand on its 
own, it is removed from the press and a simple cheese cloth bandage is 
wrapped around it for the overnight pressing.

This step is required to allow trapped air to escape and prevent voids 
on the outside of the cheese.

The bottom line for me is that I never assume what "they say" is 
necessarily correct.

js

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