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I've used brown sugar in quite a few batches with a variety of yeasts. Never had any significant off or weird flavors from it. Might just be me but it generally results in a pretty clean cider.

Leave it until the bottles show up. You can keep it in there an extra month or more if you really needed. Fiddling around with it won't necessarily do anything bad but it will increase the probability of something going wrong.

This sounds like a situation where you are trying to make something much more difficult than it needs to be. Racking a carboy from table to floor level is almost the easiest part of the whole operation. Why bother with fiddling and trying to pressurize? Just use an auto siphon or racking cane...

First off you did everything fine, so the delay in fermentation is just one of those things. As recommend repitch yeast, my favorites are White Labs English cider, champagne, or sweet mead/wine strains. But at this point I'd use whatever I could get my hands on, because I wouldn't want it to...

I don't even bother with disturbing things and taking gravity readings until the vent is bubbling slower than every 30 seconds. Generally about 2-3 weeks of activity and then let it sit for another week of very slow vent activity before I proceed to the next step.

DMS is definitely a byproduct of the yeast that normally gets vented away so that sounds very likely. You should be good continuing to vent as long as there is still some small amount of fermentation going on to produce the CO2 to help kick it out. I'd just give it 2 weeks and check back, the...

Fresh pressed cider is basically ready to have yeast pitched into it without doing anything else. Definitely do not boil it. If your going to boil it you might as well start with store bought cheap apple juice. As was mentioned a few bugs won't matter much. Try to avoid the drops. Cut out any...

You've probably got enough honey already. I make a high octane recipe for a5 gallon batch that uses 4 pounds of honey and 4 pounds of brown sugar. The result is nothing like a drinking cider. It is very alcoholic with a lot more body, and drinks more like a port. Be advised that typically...

And by clean I mean clean and sanitize Everything that could come in contact with the juice.

Be very thorough in your cleaning after you figure out what to do with the vinegar. If you try to use the same equipment to try another batch of cider you could contaminate it if you don't clean well. Won't necessarily result in vinegar but will make it more susceptible to the process.

I've just used really really cheap vodka in my airlock for some time now and never had any issues. As mentioned, regardless of what you use in the airlock, check on it regularly and keep it filled.

With 5 pounds of sugar I'm guessing you're well over 8%. Like was posted above I'm normally around 8-8.5% if I add 2 pounds. With that said I do make some stronger batches as well but I don't add priming sugar to those as I prefer the strong batches to be still. I save the carbonation for the...

As long as the apples aren't rotting you can wait for the others to catch up before you juice. Keep them cool and dry and not stuck under plastic and they should be okay. If you do juice in batches freeze immediately is better than refrigerating and using a bunch of chemicals to hold off...

In order to minimize headspace you need to minimize the surface area not how tall the column of air above it is. You can't do that in a bucket. The reason you use a carboy and fill up to the neck is so that you have a very small surface area to interact with the potential yeasts, bacteria, and...

You don't need to add either of those. If you do decide to add them the answer is it all depend upon the starting chemistry of your juice and where you are trying to get to for pH, acid, and tannin levels. Fiddling with these things is not difficult but is unnecessary until you have made a few...

Brown sugar contains around 5% molasses so you could just assume that almost all of it will be fermentable. When I've used brown sugar in recipes they have finished with the same final gravity as batches without or with dextrose. The real difference I've noted has been based on the yeast and the...

Pectic enzyme has always worked for me

Not that it will help your situation but the batch I am currently making had a similar quick stop in activity. In my case it had fermented all the way, but this was the first time I had seen it go from 1-2 bubbles per second to almost nothing in less than 24 hours. I usually observe a tapering...

I also use a lab book. I try to be very systematic, record everything, make updates every few days or so even in nothing much is happening. Record whatever variables you can. Big ones are temperature and any activity or changes. Make good tasting notes every time you sample or rack. I also made...

Everything from temperature, barometric pressure, something in the juice, anything added, or even the yeast can effect how long it takes to clear. Lots of solutions have come about to speed things up, some change the finished product more than others and some of it is up to the individual...