Can’t believe it’s not Sugar! Using Stevia as a sugar substitute to aid in baking and brewing

Abstract

Using sugar, specifically sucrose, is an important aspect of the yeast fermentation process when brewing and baking. We are looking to find whether there is a viable substitute, such as stevia or Splenda, for refined sugar (sucrose). We measured the rate of CO2 production to determine the rate of yeast growth. Our results concluded that adding an energy solution makes a radical difference within the yeast growth. Stevia will cause the yeast growth rate to be the fastest because of the number of Oxygen molecules, which is the limiting factor when looking at CO2 production. This is important to the JIBI community because there have not been trials conducted to see stevia’s effect on yeast production.