Exploring Relationships between Various Sugars in Baker’s Yeast and Ethanol Production

Abstract

Baker’s yeast is a major product industrially, contributing to various goods like bread, ethanol, biofuels, alcoholic beverages, and more (Bai et al., 2008) When combined with various sugars, baker’s yeast has the ability to produce ethanol which can be used as an alternative energy source. This study was undertaken to determine which sugars when combined with baker’s yeast will produce the highest amount of ethanol. Total ethanol production was determined by using an ethanol probe at an average of 23.6 degrees Celsius using baker’s yeast combined with glucose, sucrose, and stevia. We did 3 trials for each sugar allowing at least a ten minute lag time before collecting data for each trial. Our hypothesis that sucrose would produce more ethanol because it is a disaccharide was not supported. Glucose had the highest ethanol production most likely because this was a short tem experiment and did not allow enough time for the sucrose to be broken down.