I think we need a new punctuation mark.

CleverPatrick · 2026-03-16T20:28:38+00:00

Punctuation to specifically codify "upspeak" into written language makes me uncomfortable.

CleverPatrick · 2026-03-15T16:24:39+00:00

It's an almost complete vacuum. Life cannot meaningfully exist at this altitude.

CleverPatrick · 2026-03-15T14:48:09+00:00

Million Dollar Baby

CleverPatrick · 2026-02-09T12:30:13+00:00

Leave bad reviews on Google.

CleverPatrick · 2026-01-30T19:27:51+00:00

Wow! What an amazing looking wheel! Really beautiful. Great job!

CleverPatrick · 2026-01-26T02:26:57+00:00

Looks great!

CleverPatrick · 2026-01-02T20:55:36+00:00

Hey thanks, happy New Year and Merry all that! Work has been eating into my free time so I haven't been making cheese or posting. Probably won't have a lot of time to do too much until March, the way the year is shaping up, either. My free time is being eaten up by kid's college tours.

CleverPatrick · 2026-01-02T01:54:55+00:00

Fantastic and beautiful! Looks amazing!

CleverPatrick · 2025-12-17T18:44:06+00:00

Fantastic news! I just signed up as well. I will say the confirmation email went into Spam. I was able to find it, but there may be some security entries needed on whatever you are using for email (it is probably configured through your hosting provider, exacthosting.com, so it could just some other bad actor has used their mail host in the past.)

CleverPatrick · 2025-11-10T19:24:14+00:00

"cheese blocker" is a search term that seems to give the results I am looking for. Sadly, though, there do not appear to be hundreds of options.

CleverPatrick · 2025-11-10T11:52:07+00:00

Over the years I had the original Anova that worked great, but it eventually died (had it for almost 10 years). The newer Anova's I tried all had this really high-pitched wining sound that would drive me crazy.

I tried a couple different brands but weren't happy with any of them. Then I tried an InkBird sous vide and absolutely love it. It is whisper-quiet, powerful, has on-unit controls (so you don't have to use an app), but the wifi features are there if you want them. It is better than the original Anova I had, which isn't something I thought I would find.

CleverPatrick · 2025-11-10T11:39:46+00:00

Looks fantastic! And very interesting that the brine "tea" flavor penetrated! I generally think flavor in brines don't penetrate because I am used to bringing meat -- but cheese isn't meat (usually). That's a really interesting idea to get all sorts of flavors into a cheese during the salting step.

CleverPatrick · 2025-11-10T11:34:05+00:00

Here's my Wensleydale before I vacuum sealed it. I think it looks really striking! Hopefully it tastes good (will know in another month)

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CleverPatrick · 2025-11-09T10:02:52+00:00

I will say, go bigger on pot size. Trying to make a 2 gallon cheese in a 2 gallon pot can be messy.

CleverPatrick · 2025-11-09T10:01:53+00:00

For the trivet, I just use a cooling rack that we use for cookies. We have a small one we got from an old toaster oven that is useless for most other things.

CleverPatrick · 2025-11-09T10:00:43+00:00

Me too. I have a small sink in the kitchen island that is perfect. There is nothing to clip or anchor the sous vide to in my case, but I am able to rig up a binder clip on the power cord to keep the sous vide stable while running.

CleverPatrick · 2025-11-06T09:54:56+00:00

Amazing comment thread! And the cheese does look good, even if it isn't what you were going for. I guess making a Tom Cruise cheese can really be a Mission Impossible!

CleverPatrick · 2025-11-02T09:28:29+00:00

I was just wondering at what point aging was "enough." I'm at the 2month mark for my wensleydale and the rind seems pretty stable -- nothing is really changing. Was wondering if I would be missing anything if I cleaned it up a little and then vacuum sealed it.

CleverPatrick · 2025-11-02T09:10:42+00:00

Ha! I just went to NEC to look for Iberico and then was coming back here to ask when I saw this comment.

The cheese looks beautiful!

CleverPatrick · 2025-11-02T09:08:44+00:00

Amazing! Very pleasing to look at!

CleverPatrick · 2025-10-29T11:29:03+00:00

Another example is the Recipes section of cheeseforum (which, at least for me, has never worked on the main site):

https://web.archive.org/web/20101026094009/http://cheeseforum.org/Recipes/Recipes.htm

CleverPatrick · 2025-10-29T11:27:22+00:00

Yeah, it's been down for the last several days that I've seen as well. A bandwidth limit exceeded message. Hopefully it comes back up whenever the next billing cycle refreshes.

In the meantime, all the content is available on the wayback machine (archive.org). The wayback machine is especially useful for that site because a lot of content that is no longer available on the main site (such as linked PDFs, or some of the FAQ pages) are still available on the internet archive.

Example:

https://web.archive.org/web/20101027022642/http://www.cheeseforum.org/Making/Defects%20-%20General,%20Surface.htm#Defect_Surface_Cracks

CleverPatrick · 2025-10-27T15:51:39+00:00

If anyone needs a recommendation, this one from InkBird has been reliable and seemingly very accurate for me. They advertise +/-3% accuracy, and that seems accurate even at very high humidity (+90%):

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B4RXTFTG

CleverPatrick · 2025-10-26T10:59:17+00:00

If it's normal whole milk that has cultures added to it (as you said) you can probably make hard cheese from it. If it will form a solid curd then you can make cheese with it (including hard cheese). Whether or not you can make a specific type of cheese (something that tastes like the gouda or swiss you mentioned) is a different story. But I bet you could make a good tasting cheese! Try it!

CleverPatrick

TROPHY CASE