[Cheese] Molds (sorry, long post)

[dean crabtree]

Jack Schmidling  wrote:  I have worked out that 50 lbs is about right for a 4" Cheddar for final pressing. If you apply 50 lbs to a 10" wheel, it will be grossly under pressed. . . . Kosikowski recommends 20-60 psi but this does not seem to be necessary for a small cheese. 
   
  Thanks for the insight Jack.  I had read an article, and I can't remember where just now, on this artisan in the Alps who was pressing very large wheels (looked to be about 24" diameter x about 6") and it mentioned that he put several hundred pounds to it.  Granted, the article was more on the flavor of his cheese than the mechanics of it, but a photo showed him torqing down on the top screw of his press with a wooden piece that I likened to a breaker bar.  I could see where he was putting a couple hundred pounds of pressure to it.  From that article and without putting the math to it, I thought I could cheat and end with somewhere in a 75 - 100# for a ten inch wheel.  In the meantime, I had found the wall thickness of the polypro containers to be rated at about 150# so I was thinking that I was safe.
   
  Taking your 50# for a 4 inch wheel (3.98 psi) to puts it at 312.58# for a 10 inch wheel, and that is way out of the picture for polypro.  Suddenly, the cost on the stainless mini-Daisy hoop doesn't seem that outlandish.
   
  I do very much hope that Kosikowski is a misprint because even at the low end of 20 psi, a 10 inch wheel would need 1570.8 #, which is orders of magnitude out of my reach.  I guess that's why commercial setups use hydraulics.
   
  So Jack, I've got these wheels of cheddar that are aging.  6-1/2 inches in diameter  x 3" that I pressed at 50 pounds (1.5 psi).  When I finally open them up starting next month, just what am I going to find?
   
  TIA,
   
  Dean C.

		
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