Cheese Classes and a New press

I know I've been quiet for a couple of weeks, not really much to talk about. I've been teaching cheese making in my kitchen since the 7th of January. The old cheese press I made, the one with the all thread, finally warped enough I had to do something different. I should have used some sort of sealer on the pine wood, it would not have warped if I had. Hind sight is 20/20 and I learned. This new one I made is a bit more stable than the old one, using wooden dowel rods. I did figure out pretty quick that the hole drilling thing is pretty hard on the 1" pine so I may eventually try something different for the top piece. I just used 2 layers of wood on the bottom with holes drilled for the rods, used wood glue and screws on the rods to hold them more secure. I also used a poly acrylic sealer in the hope it will prevent whey absorption and avoid the warping.

All the cheeses being made during the classes are cheddars. I chose cheddars to teach because I like them, it's a simple cheese to create, is the least complicated, has the shortest process time and the process itself is the same for all other cheeses in the semi-hard cheese catagory.

Tomorrow, when the cheese comes out of the press, i will take more details pictures to share of the simple new design I created.