anybody ever use yeast nutrient with bread yeast?

I'm looking to make a one gallon batch of spiced orange mead for Christmas using bread yeast so I can keep it a little more on the sweeter side, but I'm debating on using a yeast nutrient, mainly due to lack of knowledge. Thoughts?

the raisins act as nutrients for the bread yeast? someone who know more might be able to help- but dont think you need it

The yeast nutrients help to build strong healthy yeast which keep off flavors down and raises ABV resistance. If you make a JAOM type mead with all the fruits and spices there are plenty of nutrients to keep the off flavors low and you want a sweeter mead so the ABV resistance is not important.

Gotcha. The recipe I had in mind is kinda like the JAOM, lot of subtractions and a few additions though. Here's my grain bill:
1 orange
1 clementine
1 cinnamon stick
1 pinch nutmeg
3.5 pounds honey
1 vanilla bean

I'm going to keep it in the primary until August, then bottle and open at Christmas. Quick question, what OG and FG should I be looking for in a melomel?

Probably looking for a gravity around 1.13 & Hopefully the bread yeast will not drop it lower than 1.02.

Why are you using bread yeast? It will work, but there are better strains out there from the various yeast companies. My one journey with bread yeast made alcohol, but thats a nice as I can be about the the final product. I think that bread yeast just runs until the ABV get to be too much and starts getting nasty. IMO you'd be better off using a clean fermenting yeast strain from White Labs, Dan Star, Wyeast, ect. Thats a pretty high OG for yeast out of a package, I would make a small starter using some honey and nutrient to "wake up" your yeast. Then pitch it into the mead with nutrients scaled to your batch size. My math says you'll be around 12 ABV if you stop at 10.20, thats pretty high and will need to age well, no need to start adding off flavors to the high alcohol.

with 3.5 lbs of honey, it'll be sweet unless you use champagne yeast...

I'd suggest something like narbone 71B...its pretty neutral itself and not highly attenuating like some other strains. nutrient additions, degas during primary, etc.

I like my meads sweet also, and find that 3lbs / gallon and 71B typically leaves me with some sweetness without being cloying, yet there's still body in the mead, although that can be very dependent on your honey source.