Leavening the Playing Field: Exploration of the Rate of Fermentation of Saccharomyces cerevisiae When Introduced to Sucrose & Baking Soda.

Abstract

Saccharomyces cerevisiae, colloquially known as baker’s yeast, plays an incredibly important role in the worlds of baking, brewing, and biofuel production. Yeast fermentation produces two key compounds that are essential to these processes — ethanol and carbon dioxide. Because companies in these industries, such as Acme Brewing & Baking, will either want to maximize or minimize these products depending on the situation, there was an experiment designed to track the carbon dioxide emissions after different additives were introduced to S. cerevisiae. During the experiment, the different rates of fermentation between dextrose, sucrose, and sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) were investigated, using carbon dioxide emissions as an indicator. The hypothesis was that the rate of fermentation based on carbon dioxide production would increase when introduced to sucrose and stay relatively the same when introduced to baking soda. It was then decided that the rate of fermentation of the yeast after being introduced to dextrose would set the baseline for the experiment, and would therefore be used as the control group. The carbon dioxide production of these three compounds were each tracked over five minute periods in order to observe the fermentation rate. At the end of the five minute periods, each additive mixture would reach its maximum carbon dioxide value. However, the results of the experiment showed that the yeast’s rate of fermentation skyrocketed when introduced to baking soda and stayed relatively constant in comparison to dextrose when introduced to sucrose. Ultimately, the hypothesis was rejected, which may be due in part to experimental error.