What would be a good yeast to make a priming solution with for a sparkling mead. My mead is around 16% ABV. How much should I use? There should be plenty of sugar to prime it up. I am going to add some more honey and fruit to back sweeten soon.
IMO you have conflicting statements here.
For the priming yeast you will need an alcohol tolerant one. Champagne would be my choice with the ABV you are working with.
In order to back sweeten, you will need to kill the yeast to prevent them from fermenting the sugar you are adding to sweeten it. Back sweetening is usually done to still drinks or to keg carbonated drinks.
Unless you match the ABV to the yeast. Like using a beer yeast that will only ferment to the 10-11% level. But you start with enough honey to have it finish in the 1.015-20 range instead of 1.000.
So maybe I’ll just kill the yeast and bottle from a keg then…
I believe that is the best plan. Kill the yeast. Sweeten. Force carbonate. Bottle.
