Rising to the Challenge: A Yeasty Exploration of Sugar Effect on Yeast Growth

Abstract

In our experiment we measured the growth rates of Saccharomyces cerevisiae (household baker’s yeast) when mixed with varying amounts of two different sugar solutions; dextrose and sucrose. Yeasts ability to grow is powered by fermentation, which is the conversion of glucose into ethanol. Thus, we hypothesis that the presence of a glucose solution will cause a substantial increase in yeast growth. In our experiment we also observed which of the two sugars produces the highest growth rate by using a hemocytometer to count cell density under the observation of a microscope, a fact which led us to conclude which sugar yielded the most cost effective and high producing growth rate of our product. Our experiment led us to conclude that dextrose has a higher cell density and therefor a higher growth rate as compared to sucrose, as was supported by our data.