Yeast Fermentation: The Effect of Sugar Type on Ethanol Production

Abstract

The process of yeast fermentation has been used for alcoholic drinks for many years, and investigations have been conducted to determine how sugar type can affect the rate of ethanol production in the yeast. We suggested that using a natural sugar, such as glucose, and an artificial sugar, such as saccharine, would help us to determine how rates of ethanol production differ amongst this specific variable of sugar type. The water is the negative control variable because it contains no sugar so it is used as a good comparison. We conducted five trials using the yeast with glucose, saccharine, and water and compared the rates of ethanol production between the three groups. Our findings showed that glucose produced the most ethanol, and saccharine and water produces little to no ethanol. We believe that our research will be interesting to people that are involved in the making of fermented beverages because it offers new information that can add variety to the beverage-making industry.