This is my first farmhouse cheddar cheese:

I bought an inexpensive cheese press online because I was impatient to get started on firm cheese.  The press worked adequately, though one side of the cheese was cockeyed, and the other was dented from the excess wadded cheesecloth.  Before I took this picture I waxed the cheese to help prevent mold growth. The wax is slightly yellow but the cheese underneath is really white. I made this cheese in April last year from one gallon of Borden’s whole milk, one package of mesophilic culture and a couple of drops of animal rennet.  The cheese turned out white as paper but tasted great!

I waxed the cheese early one morning while I was waiting for our coffee maker to finish brewing a pot.  Later when I brought my wife coffee, she asked me why I had a silly grin.  I replied “I just waxed my cheese!” Her rejoinder was “Please don’t ever tell anyone you just said that.”

Here is a picture of the same cheese when we first cut into it:

This was at my brother-in-law’s kitchen. The lights were normal incandescent bulbs  so there is a softer, yellowish cast to the light than the fluorescent lights in my kitchen. The cheese was startlingly white.