After a few successful mozzarella tries, it is time to move onto something more difficult - Cheddar! Cheddar is a hard cheese so it needs some new equipment. It starts similar to other cheeses but this time I started with two gallons of milk, instead of one. I also added a bacteria culture. Here is the cheese curd after it separated from the whey
The next step is to press it to remove moisture. I went to Lowe's and bought a few pieces of wood and threaded bolts. The first step was just to use 10 lbs of pressure on the cheese wrapped in cheese cloth in a cheese mold.
It starts to firm up as the moisture leaves. Next I added 20 lbs of weights for 10 more minutes and then 50 lbs of weights for 12 hours. It's a good thing I kept most my college textbooks.
The next day I removed the weights and let it dry out. It is a little over 2 lbs of cheese. After a few days it starts to form a hard rind on the outside. The next step is to wax it. I bought a pound of cheese wax and melted it. I then dipped the cheese into the wax and used a paintbrush to fill in the gaps. Now it is ready for a month of aging.
