Orange You Glad We Didn’t Do Bananas: The Effect of Oranges on Ethanol Production in Yeast

Abstract

.In this study of Saccharomyces cerevisiae (yeast), we wanted to test the production of ethanol in yeast to create alcohol. By combining yeast with different orange filled solutions, we determined which solution produced the most ethanol. We hypothesized that the solution containing orange juice and orange peel would produce the most ethanol, and the solution containing only orange juice would produce the least. After collecting data, we found that our hypothesis was partly refuted, partly supported. Our findings suggest that the orange peel solution produced the most ethanol and the orange juice solution produced the least. We concluded that the solution with only orange peel creates more ethanol, because of the sugars found within the peel. When reviewing our results, we came to the conclusion that pH could have also been tested to determine if it also affects ethanol production. This is applicable because breweries can use this method to produce citrus filled alcohol.