Barkshack, and yeast quantity question

I recently put up my first Barkshack in 10 years and after reading the red star package (5 grams) figured out that Charlie's recipe calls for 28 grams of champagne yeast - no wonder the batch I made 10 years ago didn't turn out as well (we drank it flat), I only used one packet of yeast (thinking like a beer yeast packet). Anyway, the mead looks fantastic and everything is on course.

My question; I used 28 grams of champagne yeast for 5 gallons, and made a 3 gallon batch of blackberry flavored (IQF blackberries) Barkshack and reduced the amount of yeast prorata. Was the reduction in quantity of yeast apporpriate?

Because this "little" mead is be-youteeful, but settling down quite a bit since pitching three days ago. I'm not too worried, I'm just gonna let it be after it goes to secondary until ready.

I also made a batch of Barkshack (I love the dry flavor and especially the fizz) and flavored it with 48oz of that POM pomagranate juice (flash pasturized - I guess that means fast) and it was made a day after the first Barkshack and is already clearing out. While the first Barkshack is still fermenting those beautiful little bubbles.

Question #2: does the fruit have an affect on fermentation rate? Even if it was just a juice? Or IQF blackberries? Or fresh? I got 6 lbs of frozen peeled ripe prickly pears in the freezer but they kinda scare me - they look great but they're funky.

and should I have reduced the quantity of yeast proportionately for the smaller batch, or just leave it at 28 grams when I make my 3 gallon Kiwi flavored Slurm mead?

Thanks all - will be watching cause I just gots to know.

I know mead has a considerably higher gravity than beer, but when you're using dry yeast there are billions of cells in one of those packets, 28 grams (~6 packets?)seems extremely excessive. We did 2 meads, JOAM and a traditional sweet mead. One uses dry yeast we pitched 2 packets to be safe, and the other used a starter with wyeast's sweet mead yeast. I doubt my starter had as many cells as 6 packets. Both are bubbling away nicely and look to be great.

I've made the BGM about 3 times and I've ever only used 1 packet each time.

Yeah, I thought that yeast amount was excessive but the BGM recipe in the Papazian book does call for 1oz(28g) of chamgagne yeast - oh well, i'm trying to follow directions better these days but thanks for the info, I guess my batch 10 years ago just wasn't fermented long enough - didn't know about secondary fermentaion back then and never used it, we just drank it, mostly before the one year necessary in the bottles - impatient.

Nineteen days this batch has been in primary and still fermenting - a bubble through the airlock about every 50 seconds - perhaps the Papazian recipe called for the extra large volume of yeast to insure sugar utilization to make the flavor drier? Or this red star yeast is just taking its time.

The other batch of mead, which I used a liquid White Labs Champagne culture on settled down and started clearing at two weeks, I waited another five days and then racked to secondary - looks great, still active but very slowly.

usually mead take a long time to ferment. We're guessing our sweet mead will be ready to rack sometime between 1 and 2 months.