Sugar, Yeast, and Carbon Dioxide OH MY!

Abstract

Different types of sugars can affect the growth and metabolism of yeast. There is a gap in knowledge regarding the effect of different concentrations of a sugar on yeast. We created 5 experimental groups with 0.00%, 0.625%, 1.25%, 2.50% and 5.00% concentration of rice sugar in the red yeast growth media, respectively. To account for the sugar’s effect, we measured the amount of CO2 produced after placing the red yeast and growth media in a 250 mL respiration chamber for 15 minutes. Upon completion of the experiment we found that our results are inconclusive. Our second trials of each concentration presented results opposite of the first trial. Our results could lead to more research that would determine why we received variations within our data.