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Answers: How would one go about making some sort of alcoholic beverage wiht the following items:
a glass jar, plastic bottles, a variety of fruit juice, fresh fruits, (possibly yeast), a refridgerator, dark corners, bread, lipton ice tea mix, chocolate, soda, a bright window...

1)what conditions would be best for fermentation.. a) light or dark? b) air tight or open?
2) in what proportions would i have to combine which items and how? ***
3) how long will this take? how long do i have to leave it in what stages?

measurements would be great. advice would be great. are there any other common house hold items that could be utilized? bonus points for people who can explain it scientifically / explain how/why certain things work better

hard core recipe would be so sweet

i will pick out the best answer... so please answer all the above to the best of your ability - thanks

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Ok, you will need to use the yeast, or the fruit you use will have to have yeast naturally growing on it. It is easier to ferment a fruit juice mix than actual fruit, due to the risk of other molds/bacteria/bugs spoiling the fruit as it ferments. It may rot rather than ferment. Baker's Yeast converts simple sugars, expecially glucose, ultimately into ethyl alcohol, which is drinking alcohol. There are kits for home brewing beer and home winemaking, which is legal in most states (though you should check your own laws.) Fermentation can produce a solution of around 10-12% alcohol, higher under very precise conditions or with special yeasts. As the alcohol concentration gets too high however, the yeast will be killed off by the toxic ethanol, so producing alcohol of a higher concentration is not possible. Distillation is required to produce hard liquors, which involves boiling the alcohol off of the water. Since water boils at a higher temperature, heating the solution to the boiling point of ethanol, (78.4C while water boils at 100C) produces vapors that are collected and condensed have a higher alcohol concentration than that of the original mixture. Distilling your own alcohol, for sale or personal consumption, is illegal in most if not all states. Basically, simply add the ingrediants you want to ferment, such as fruit juice, to a bottle and dissolve a teaspoon or so of yeast in warm water. Read the yeast package to see how warm the water needs to be to be activated. You will NOT want to seal the container tightly while it ferments, as a biproduct of the fermentation is carbon dioxide, the same gas that makes pop and beer fizzy, and this gas will cause the container to burst as it builds up if it is not allowed to vent. Placing a small hole in the lid, or leaving it a little bit open should provide plenty of room for the gas to escape. I haven't fermented anything for personal consumption, but I have a home-made carbondioxide system for plant growth in my fish tank. It consists of simply a cup of sugar, 1.5 liters of water, a teaspoon of yeast and airline tubing to inject the CO2 into the fish tank. I have my bottles in simply a dark shelf under the tank, and it has been steadily producing CO2 (and therefore ethanol as well) for almost 2 weeks. However, I have no idea how good this would taste when it is done. One last thing to be careful of is to make sure you don't fill your bottle so full with water that the froth produced by the fermentation overflows, as that would make a huge mess. I provided a link to Wikipedia's site on home brewing so you can do some more research. Sorry I didn't have more specifics from personal experience, but I haven't tried brewing for personal consumption myself.

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