2 suggestions:
First, maybe you should only have gone to 10 to 12 pounds per pound of cheese. With the uneven swelling, overpressing is a possibility. There is a very tight range of ideal pressure. My own experience has shown, you need to have the ratio higher for smaller cheeses.
What is the form factor of this cheese? Is it at least 4 inches thick? If not, adjust your next make so your cheese is 4 to 6 inches thick. This will help your pressing ratios to work better at knitting your cheese, and also will give you a more proper thickness for ripening
Try keeping it in the press a little shorter time,
try brining it for a shorter time.
Basically, brining the cheese will put a stop to acidification by ST, so if you brine it quicker you will have a higher pH, that is a more hospitable environment.
Also you could add water to the cheese to raise the pH. They do this is Switzerland.
I really suspect your problem lies with acidity, so these are 2 ways to solve that problem.
With Emmentaler, you add the water after the curd has brewed, before cooking, same temp as the curd is before cooking. It's only purpose is to sweeten the cheese. you could add like 20% water.
Then if that doesn't work, your problem is salt. The solution there is to brine it less.
With such a small cheese, minute adjustments do a lot. But you are a good test subject, we can find a reliable means of making this cheese!