I am a new (< 2 month old) cheese maker, who is currently obsessed with finding cost effective ingredients. I have been using canning/pickling salt instead of cheese salt for my cheeses. I am concerned because I have been adding 2 tablespoons of pickling salt instead of the 2 tablespoons of cheese salt that a recipe calls for, I suspect I am actually adding too much salt because the actual weight, and therefore amount, of 1T of pickling salt is greater than 1T of cheese salt.
When cooking with Kosher salt you need to add more salt than a recipe that assumes you are using table salt. Cooks Illustrated recommends between 1.5 to 2 times as much (by volume).
Can anyone tell me what the proper conversion multiplier is to save me the trouble of buying cheese salt and paying to have it shipped to me so I can do the weight comparisons myself?
By the way, I am not worried about conversions for making a brine, since that is always as much salt as the water will take, i.e a saturated solution. As long as the brine is so saturated that no more salt dissolves, it is what you want.