Sweet Meads

Being a lover of the sweetest of meads, I was wondering what the best options were for getting sweet, to devastatingly sweet meads were. Does starting with a high gravity and lots of honey get you there? Is it "better" to backsweeten? What are the best methods of backsweetening mead? Any recommendations on what to sweeten with? I see a lot of back and forth on yeasts for specific meads, but are there any other lovers of sweet meads out there with recommendations? Thanks for the help.

Exceed the alcohol tolerance of the yeast. That's it. Start with lower tolerance yeast.
You can get VERY high alcohol that way, so you may prefer doing a lower gravity mead, stabilize and back sweeten.

Welcome!

That's a great idea, I hadn't considered that.

I always ferment dry and back sweeten. The wine conditioner works well, but I have noticed some flavors that I don't want but can't really describe.

If you want a sweet mead that isn't so high in ABV it takes years to mellow out...

Wyeast sweet mead craps out at 12% abv.

or Safale S-33 will hit 13% or so.

Use no more than 3lbs honey per gallon, and you'll get a fairly sweet, dessert style mead that'll be drinkable in 6-8 months.