The Effects of Sucrose and Dextrose Concentrations on Baker’s Yeast

Abstract

Yeast is a fungal organism used frequently in the brewing and baking industries. It uses fermentation of sugars for energy; thus we wanted to know how manipulating the amount of sugar speeds up the process. Specifically, we decided to test if different concentrations of sucrose, or table sugar, affect yeast fermentation rates. To investigate this question, we measured the rate of fermentation of yeast in two solutions with different concentrations of sucrose and the same amount of yeast. We predicted that CO2 production would increase as sucrose concentration increased, and hypothesized that this was because greater amounts of sucrose would provide the yeast with more fuel for metabolism. As a corollary, we also tested yeast fermentation rates with the same concentrations of dextrose, a similar sugar. Our data did not produce significant results for the effects of sugar concentration, or sugar type. Thus, our findings do not support our hypothesis.