2% salt for brie tastes too salty

[jacobI]

My brie just tastes very salty. The first one I made was too salty by my fault, almost inedible, I didn't have a scale and just followed a recipe. I got a scale for my second brie, and put in %1.9 salt by weight, just a little under the 2% reccomended by Caldwell's book. I followed cheesemaking.com brie's recipe with adjustments from caldwell's book, and put to use my new pH meter.  The second brie just finished it's affinage after 1 month, and it's still noticeably salty though also delicious. 
Can I add less salt maybe 1.2-1.5%? How will this negatively affect the culture control? 
Also, I didn't add any extra cream, I'm wondering if making a double cream will reduce the taste of salt?
Thanks for helping bring more tasty cheese into the world!
mandatory cheese pics, this is the 2nd brie.

[River Bottom Farm]

A little less salt shouldn't effect growth by very much. Because with surface ripened cheese you basically let the pH bottom out then bring it back up with mold and yeast growth the main purpose of the salt is taste and somewhat to control growth rate (but that can also be controlled with temperature anyway). I would find the salt taste you like the best and use temperature to control your growth rate to desired ripening time and flavor.As for using more cream the only real reason for that is to sabilize the paste (make the final cheese stiffer) it will marginally change the salt up take rate but shouldn't be the reason for making double or triple cream brie.

Nice looking cheese! AC4U

[jacobI]

Does anyone have a better amount of salt by weight to recommend? I'm just suprised the Caldwell recipe turned out salty; I may have let the cheese dry too much before salting so not enough ran off in the whey. 

[mikekchar]

I think there are a fair few variables when salting this way, unfortunately.  I was experimenting and finding that I needed quite a bit more than I expected (nearly 4%!)  One of the things I realised recently when making brine is that the salt I use (which is an artisan sea salt made by a guy who lives down the road from me) has a lot of either chalk or gypsum in it.  So when I'm salting the cheese, I need accommodate that.

Other problems you can run into is that you need a fairly small amount of salt.  So if you have a 1 lb cheese, 2% is only 9 grams of salt.  If you accidentally put in say 11 grams, that's 22% more! And when you are rubbing the salt on the cheese, you might be really efficient and not spill any, or you might spill a lot -- again only 1 or 2 grams on the table is going to make a bit difference.  If it's humid, then the salt will take in moisture from the air and possible drip off the cheese instead of being absorbed, etc, etc.

So I think you just have to experiment and figure what works well for your salt and your procedures.  Brining is *much* more controlled, and I think a lot of people like to use that technique when it is possible.