A manual drainage container can be used to pre-press the curd and drain the whey and cut blocks that fit into a particular size of cheese mold. The manual drainage container is made to fit to the capacity of curd in the cheese vat. The curd can flow by gravity from the the cheese vat to the drainage-finishing table if the cheese vat is placed on a platform, or the curd can be pumped to the cheese vat with a special low speed curd pump.