The Beast of the Yeast: How Sugar Affects the Production of Ethanol with Yeast

Abstract

During fermentation, yeast is supplied energy through sucrose (sugar) in order to produce ethanol. In order to expand on this this, we used increasing concentrations of sugar and water, and then added the same amount of sodium phosphate to each container. Next, we added the same amount of yeast to all containers and measured the release of ethanol. Through our results, we were able to determine that our hypothesis was supported. This is because the more sugar that was added, the more ethanol that was produced. Many other experiments reach the same conclusion and support our hypothesis such as experiments that look at the relationship between sugar concentration, yeast, and the amount of water used. We conducted this experiment in order to learn more about yeast and contribute to information in the fields of brewing and baking.