Homemade cheese and cider press

Step 11: The cheese press

I then started working on the cheese press part. I plan on making some hard cheese like cheddar, so I need to be able to press the whey from the curds. Different cheeses require different amounts of pressure, so I created a system that will allow me to vary the weight.

First I needed to create a lever. I attached a couple of small blocks of oak wood to a longer piece to make a big enough end surface to put a hinge on. I attached that whole lever to one of the side braces of the larger cider press. It's screwed to one of the side pieces and spans beyond the other side. It's on that far side where I hang a 5 gallon jug and put varying amounts of water in it for weight.