The Effect of Various Sugars on the Growth of Yeast

Abstract

Carbon dioxide production from yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) fermentation is utilized in baking to make bread products rise during baking. Our experiment set out to determine whether using different types of sugar, sucrose, fructose, and dextrose (a form of glucose), would vary the amount of CO2 produced, making fermentation more or less efficient. Each trial of the experiment, aside from the control trials where no sugar was added, was conducted by placing 40mL of deionized water, 27 μL of sodium phosphate, and .08 grams of one of the three sugars into a 250 mL biochamber and mixing the solution, making sure the sugar was dissolved. Then, .08 g of S. cerevisiae was added to the biochamber and carbon dioxide production was measured using the CO2 probe. Due to having an insignificant p value, we were unable to determine whether or not the type of sugar used during fermentation has an effect on the growth rate of yeast.