Different Salts

I remember reading a fermenting book a few years ago that noted a default of Kosher salt for the recipes, but included a section on some other salts you might try like a volcanic black salt, a red salt, etc. That section included how the salt mineral contents tended to alter the flavor profiles of the different ferments.

It occurs to me as I think about it, all of the recipes I can recall are similarly focused on Kosher salt. I know that's for a good reason, but has anyone read anything about using different varieties of salt to craft their cheeses? Even better, does anyone have personal experience with this? I think it would be interesting to see how the different salt options influence the finished cheeses.

A friend who has a place in Hawaii gave me some packaged 'Maui salt'.  It is red.  I used it for a brine and those cheeses molded.  So I think, because I do my salt to water ratio by weight, that the clay in the salt made my brine less salty.

Kosher salt is an industrially refined salt, so you'll get close to 100% sodium chloride from this, but none of the extra minerals and intricacies that you'd get from unrefined salt.

I use Himalayan salt, as that is the most affordable unrefined salt that I can access - this is (from memory) around 80% sodium chloride, so 20% of this is different minerals that occur in natural salts, and you need to use a little more to get the same salt content. Celtic Sea salt is another unrefined salt that is easy to find. There are also many local unrefined salts, from seas, lakes, or rock deposits, and what you can access will depend on where you live - I know Redmond real salt is a popular US-produced unrefined salt.

Many salts (including most refined salts) will have weird additives that can effect fermentation, such as anti-caking agents and added iodine. One of the reasons some books call for kosher salt is because it doesn't contain these things, but bulk unrefined salts don't have these things either - so you can easily replace kosher salt in recipes with unrefined salts - you just may need to account for the fact that they are less salty by using around 1/4 teaspoon more unrefined salt for every teaspoon of refined salt called for in the recipe, or use 12.5g unrefined salt to replace every 10g of refined salt.

With all that said, taste is the best judge of saltiness in foods - feel free to experiment with different salts and find the right amounts for your tastes.

For cheese, you'll generally want to use a finely-ground salt, rather than a coursely-ground one.