lard press

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Countryside : One Thread

My husband bought me an old lard or sausage press manufactured by Enterprise at an auction. I was thinking I could also use it as a cheese press and was wondering if you could figure out how much pressure is being applied with a turn of the crank? It is in great condition and I have lots of fresh milk right now and would like to make some cheese but never really got my cheese press finished. Any suggestions? Marlene

-- Marlene Leiby (mleiby@caprock-spur.com), October 21, 2001

Answers

Ive got one of those,, I like it. Never thought about pressing cheese with it,, should work, its the correct size. AS for the pressure,, you would need some type of pressure gauge with an external reading,, but if your good with a torque wrench you should be able to guess

-- stan (sopal@net-port.com), October 21, 2001.

Pressing cheese at home is really not complicated enough to worry about measuring pressure. I've been making pressed cheeses at home for donkey years perfectly well, and never bothered. It's factory cheese plants, where they press thirty 40lb. blocks at once, who need those numbers, not us, for some of the best cheeses in the world use no more pressure than the weight of one cheese on another. Don't sweat it.

The key to pressing cheese is to pack the mold when the curds are warm, flip the cheese often (every 30 minutes or hour) for the first three hours--to see if the surface is becoming smooth as it should--and to start with little pressure and increase it slowly over time, so you won't trap the free whey in the cheese instead of move it out. With a little practice you'll see what needs to be done, and truth be told, the pressure numbers in the recipes usually don't help much simply because how you make the cheese has far more impact on its body than pressing does...

Well made cheese almost presses itself, and if you mess up the make, no amount of pressing will fix it.

Be sure to line your lard press with a nice new, sturdy, finely woven cheesecloth before you add the curds---you'll never get the cheese out otherwise! And be fearless! You can always feed any failed cheeses to the pigs!

-- Julia (charmer24@juno.com), October 21, 2001.


Moderation questions? read the FAQ