How important would you say it is to be able to press multiple blocks of cheese at a time? Coming up with a good cheese press design is one of those things I've always considered when thinking about getting started in the hobby.
I guess it would depend on your desired volume. From what I am learning so far (still a newbie) most pressing times are 24 hrs or less. I read about some making a big batch - 10 gallons for example - and pressing the whole thing and then cutting into smaller pieces for aging. This would be good I guess if you wanted to see the difference of the same batch at different aging times, maybe a month apart.
I have been making 2 gallon batches and ending up with ~2 pound cakes. The pressing time is short enough that I can make one Saturday and one Sunday for example. By the time the Sunday batch was ready to be pressed the Saturday batch was finished and ready to come out of the press and start the drying process. So output doing one at a time can be pretty good just doing one at a time. I have seen pictures of presses with several cakes stacked up getting pressed at the same time. I believe that's the way the commercial folks do it.
I'm not an engineer but it would seem pressing multiples or singles would be the same. If a 4" mold is used and it takes X weight to achieve a certain psi across the surface, a 7" mold would take an increase of Y weight to achieve the same psi due to the increase in surface area. But, it shouldn't matter vertically if it was one cake or ten, the pressure should be the same through the cakes with just the additional weight of the stacked cakes themselves taken into consideration. 50 lbs is 50 lbs (?).
I'm sure someone on here can correct that statement;D
Topic: New Hobby (Read 4904 times)
