Ahh, the joys of home brewing!

I went through my notes, and here is a site I found: http://homedistiller.org and http://www.homebrewtalk.com. There may be more links in the mess of notes below.

We started making our own yeast for baking because the stores ran out. For brewing (and baking), you can reused your yeast indefinitely as long as you keep it alive. I usually didn't do that just because it was easier to buy it at the time.

One thing you might also look into is distilling. If I had the space and time, I'd certainly brew again but also distill. You can buy distiller's yeast that will proof out at over 20%. Most yeast will die off at 12-14%. And distilling looks like a simple process. I mean, it has to be, right?

So I combined the notes I found and I'll paste them below. Wherever you see something that looks like this:

====== Mead ======
Created Tuesday 05 February 2013

--- that indicates the beginning of a new note. There are some recipes buried in there. I think I may have used the boil method a few times but also used the no boil method. Boiling 8 kilos of honey with a few gallons of water is a pain. Any recipes of mind in there are for five-gallon batches. That's enough mead to keep you in hangovers for a while!

EDIT: It says my message is too long. I'll split it into a couple more responses below. Here's the first bit:

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====== Links ======
Created Saturday 09 February 2013

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No chill brewing

http://www.brewersfriend.com/2009/06/06/australian-no-chill-brewing-technique-tested/

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/No_Chill_Method
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Mead Brandy http://homedistiller.org/sugar/wash-sugar/honey
Jacks recipe for Mead Brandy ...

I think this would be close to the ancestral roots of Krupnik (the honey sweetened vodka). First step: make mead
Per gallon (4L)
3 pounds of honey
one TEAspoon of yeast nutrient
one TABLEspoon of acid blend

For more on mead : http://consumer.lallemand.com/danstar-lalvin/InFerment/Mead.html

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The biggest problem from fruit flies, other than being a bother around the
house, is that they carry the spores for vinegar. Your wine is most sensitive to
the vinegar organism when there is alcohol present and air is present.
It behooves a wine maker to keep fruit flies to a minimum to reduce inoculation

Found 130209 at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/meadmakers/message/2082

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Saw this at http://www.gotmead.com/forum/showthread.php?t=12015 regarding spotty fermentation:

Aerate this twice a day for the next three days and see where you are bubbler speed wise.

Your starter had way too much nutrient in it for the yeast, and that may actually have caused the starter to be less effective than it should be. Your starter also does not need to be going longer than 24 hours. Hold off on doing anything else to this for the next couple of days, and let the aeration work it's magic.

Give the must 5 grams of nutrient tomorrow evening, and keep aerating. Report back.

Hope this helps,