Sugar Complexities and Correlations with Different Yeasts

Abstract

Baker’s yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, is a fungus that naturally occurs in more places than on food. It is most commonly used to help baked goods have flavor and help foods, like dough used to make bread, able to rise (Chu 2007). The brewing yeast we used was grown by our lab teaching assistant, called S cerevisae st. Lightfoot, it is in the same species of yeast as Saccharomyces brewer’s yeast. We tested the two yeasts with different types of sugars, but using the same sugars for the different yeast, was added to each and collected the carbon dioxide output. In our experiment, we wanted to test if the sugar complexities had any correlation to carbon dioxide increase or decrease in baker’s or brewer’s yeast. We found that glucose, the least complex sugar had the least amount of carbon dioxide output. Corn sugar, which was the most complex sugar we tested, had the most carbon dioxide output in both of the yeast, bakers and brewers. This means that there is a correlation between sugar complexities and carbon dioxide output in different types of yeast.