Turning mead into cider?

[damiongrimm]

Alright guys, interesting question here.

I recently came upon about 5 gal of a mead that a friend made that died out at about 5%. Useless for a mead, but I am resourceful and optimistic. The biggest problem here is my friend lost his recipe for the mead and so I’m very much shooting in the dark with trying to set this up. I am planning on taking it, adding in some more honey and maybe some corn sugar, and turning it into a pear cider.

Now, that being said, I have yet dabble in the cider world. What I want my end result to be here is a high abv(10-14 maybe?) sweeter cider, almost a sparkling mead of sorts, more juice-like, rather than the dry and bitter of your general ciders.

My biggest decision to make right now is which yeast to use. Any suggestions? Obviously it would have to be able to withstand the high abv it’s going to get to, so my first thought is champagne yeast, but is there one that won’t make it so dry? Or should I just put extra sugar to account for what the yeast is going to eat? Any thoughts?

 

[Lefou]

Some folks will intentionally use less attenuative yeasts, even ale yeasts, in an attempt to leave some residual sugars behind. The yeast may or may not exhaust themselves where you expect, so plan your pre-ferment gravity well as the yeast will tend to dry your must out.
A safer, more trouble-free way to get a sparkling result would be to ferment, then age in a pressurized keg. I've done mildly petillant ciders but only in PET bottles. That particular instance was when the must gravity was within 10-12 gravity points above an anticipated 1.000 to 0.998 finish. I wasn't going to risk a mistake with glass.
The PET bottles were fairly firm and the cider had a nice, noticeable fizz, but it's an experiment I've never done since, or will do again with glass.

 

[Lefou]

So here's the gist of things.
You want to mix a 5% mead with pear juice to yield a result giving an 8-10% ABV. Your volume should be a 50/50 mix of mead to juice and to yield a max ABV of around 10%, so the gravity of the juice must be about 1.050, give or take. To withstand a reasonable level of alcohol you might need nutrient additions with your juice fermentation, but even an ale yeast can ferment beyond the stated alcohol tolerance, so you'll need to observe and take samples.
I would ferment your perry must, add sorbate, sweeten slightly, and mix in your mead. Once that's done it would be OK to keg under pressure and age.

 

[damiongrimm]

Oh ok fantastic info thank you.