An apparatus for filling cheese hoops with curd and for compressing the curd to form a finished cheese. The invention includes a hoop cart for supporting a plurality of generally cylindrical cheese hoops in closely spaced aligned arrangement and positioned such that they can each be filled from the top. The apparatus also includes filler trays which are receivable on the aligned cheese hoops to permit curds to be poured therein. Finally, the apparatus includes a vertically oriented press having a plurality of aligned downwardly movable plungers. The press is designed to receive the hoop cart and filler trays such that the plungers of the press are vertically aligned with the cheese hoops whereby the plungers may be forced downwardly into the cheese hoops to pack and to compress the curds therein. The plungers may then be removed from the hoops and the cart pulled from under the press such that the filler trays may be removed from the hoops. The carts may be returned to their position within the press and the plungers reinserted in the hoops and maintained under pressure until the finished cheese is formed.

Soft paste cheese is formed by mixing curd forming additives from burettes (12) to milk flowing in a funnel (11) and directing the resulting curd forming milk mixture into a basin-like receptacle (21) in which a mold block (23) made up of an array of vertically elongated perforated molds (24) of substantially uniform and unobstructed cross section have been placed to fill the receptacle and the molds and, after curds and whey have formed and stratified, removing the whey (34) and lifting the molds as a group onto a draining plate (37), placing inverted molds (39) of like cross section over the molds (24) and turning the mold assembly to turn the cheese (41) therein for further draining and removing the cheese from the molds (39).

Soft paste cheese is formed by mixing curd forming additives from burettes with milk flowing in a funnel and directing the resulting curd forming milk mixture into a basin-like receptacle in which a mold block made up of an array of vertically elongated perforated molds of substantially uniform and unobstructed cross section have been placed to fill the receptacle and the molds and, after curds and whey have formed and stratified, removing the whey and lifting the molds as a group onto a draining plate, placing inverted molds of like cross section over the molds and turning the mold assembly to turn the cheese therein for further draining and removing the cheese from the molds.