I've been brewing mead since 1998, so I've got a bit of a grip on the process ;-)
I made a fairly extensive post a while ago to a similar request,
I'd recommend giving it a read. In terms of your specific questions:
Equipment:
Your choices here are many, but will be largely dictated by your planned brew size. Wine starter kits are a good option, but since most wine kits are 5 gallons, you'll be committing to 5 gallon batch sizes. By the sounds of it, that is not your preferred option.
For 1 gallon brewing, I'd recommend the following:
- A food-safe container to use as your primary fermenter. This should be at least ~30% larger than you planned volume if you're using fruit. Glass or stainless steel are best, but plastic works.*
- A 1 gallon (or 3 gallon) glass or stainless jug (or carboy). This will be your secondary fermenter.*
- If you're planing on adding fruit to the secondary, you'll want a secondary that is ~30% larger than your planned volume*
- Airlocks for the above fermenters. Depending on the fermenter, you may need to buy a bung to fit the airlocks to the fermenter. For jugs with a screw-top lid, simply drill the lit to fit the airlock stem.
- A siphon; a proper brewing siphon (with a rigid cane) is best, but a simple food-grade plastic hose is sufficient
- A hydrometer or refractometer for taking gravity readings
- Some brewing-grade sanitizor. I prefer starsan, but there are many other options out there.
- A stainless or plastic spoon that will fit into the opening of your fermenters
The stuff with *'s is size-dependent, so if brewing 3 gallon batches you'll need to find appropriate sized equipment. Everything else is size-independent, and once purchased, can be used for any scale of mead-making.
Headspace
During primary fermentation, headspace is not much of an issue. The yeast will consume some of the O2 in the headspace, and the release of CO2 from the fermentation will pretty quickly purge the remainder from the fermenter (1 gallon of mead will produce 5 to 7 cubic feet of CO2). However, as soon as your primary fermentation is completed you'll need to transfer the mead to an air-impermanent (glass or stainless) fermenter that you can seal with an airlock and which contains a minimal amount of headspace. If you are brewing quick turn-around meads, like those made with the
TONSA method, you can avoid the transfer to secondary and simply bottle 4-6 weeks after you pitch the yeast. If you're planning on letting your mead sit longer than that, than you'll need to transfer to eliminate the risk of oxidation.
Fruit/Fermentables Additions
There are two approaches to adding fruit (and other things containing fermentable sugars) to meads. The first is to add the fermentables at the same time as when you add the honey/yeast; the second is to add the fruit during secondary fermentation. This is a "controversial" topic among mead makers - if you ever want some cheap entertainment, go to a mead forum and ask which approach is best and watch the fights begin.
The argument for adding the fermentables early is that you ensure that their sugars ferment, and it simplifies downstream processing (e.g. no need for multiple secondary fermenters, no need to account for volume losses in the secondary fermenter. The argument for adding the fermentables late is that it is supposed to retain more of the finer flavours and aromas as they don't get "blown off" by a vigorous fermentation, giving a fresher flavour...but at the risk of having a stuck fermentation (e.g. the yeast don't re-energise and ferment the added sugars), and with the increased complexity of dealing with added volume (in the form of your fruit/fermentable) and volume losses (the fruit/fermentable will likely absorb some mead).
I've done it both ways, and IMO, it doesn't matter - the mead is fantastic either way, and I've not noticed a consistent difference in the mead's flavour. FWIW, Steve Fletty (one of the most awarded hobbyist-scale mead makers in the world) adds all of his fruits to the primary, before adding the yeast. I do whatever works - if the fruit is on-hand when I'm setting up the mead, I'll add it during primary fermentation. But sometimes I add fruit to an already-fermented mead on a whim, and simply add that fruit when it becomes available.
There is an exception to this - spices should always be added shortly before bottling your mead. Spices can very quickly overpower a mead, so I'd recommend adding the spices once the mead is ready to bottle, and then sampling daily until the desired spice level is reached (a tea ball is great for this, if you can find one that'll fit through the neck of your fermenter). Alternatively, make a spice tincture and add that drop-wise until you get the desired flavour.
Specific Recommendations
This is hard, as the "best" yeast, nutrient, etc, depends on what kind of mead you're making and what is available to you. Yeasts are usually matched to the style of mead, but my workhorse yeast is lavalin D47. Its great for straight meads, but works well with fruits and spiced meads. Some ale yeasts, particularly the English ones, work well with cysers (cider-mead hybrid) - Nottingham is a great yeast for this.
For nutrients, any organic nutrient will do. Not "organic" in the hippy/hipster/new-aged/anti-science sense, but rather in the chemical sense. I.E. a nutrient made largely of dead yeast, with some added minerals to boost zinc and available nitrogen. Fermaid-o, Fermaid-k, servomyces, wyeast and W1000 are all good choices. Avoid 100% DAP (diammonium nitrate) which is often sold as a cheap nutrient. Its fine if a portion of the nutrient is DAP, but 100% DAP lacks the other nutrients yeast need and often leaves an ammonia aroma behind. As a "rule", good nutrients will be beige-to-brown in colour.
I have a rather extensive library of mead making books, and I'd recommend none of them. Unlike beer and wine homebrewing, mead making seems to lack quality publications with good instructions. In all honesty, you'll find better mead making recipes and instructions on homebrewing forums and blogs, and even on youtube, than you'll find in any book I am aware of.
My best advice
Forget recipes, best yeasts and all that other jazz. Your early focus needs to be on using proper cleaning and sanitation methods (note: those are not the same thing), and managing your ferments (managing their temperature, transferring at an appropriate time, preventing stuck fermentations, etc). Those factors, more than recipe formulation or specific ingredients, are what will make or break your meads. Infection (from poor cleaning/sanitation), oxidation or autolysis (from overly-late transfers - tastes like wet cardboard and mead, respectively), and stuck fermentations will ruin a mead. Get past those hurdles, and your mead will be -
at worst - good. The difference between good and great is mostly experience.
Hope that helps.
Bryan