Change in the Rate of Yeast Metabolism Based on the Temperature Change

Abstract

Yeasts use alcoholic fermentation as main mode of energy production in anaerobic conditions, producing ethanol as byproduct in this process. This allows them to have variety of applications in human lives ranging from bakery to brewery. With yeast using enzymes and molecular kinetics for this reaction process, temperature can have great impact on the rate of yeast metabolic process. This research aims to find out how temperature change impacts yeast metabolic process by observing amount of carbon dioxide gas produced under five different temperature conditions. The temperature conditions are prepared with approximately 20 °C gradient starting at around 0 °C and rising to approximately 100 °C. In order to compare the differences in gas volume changes in each temperature group, one-way ANOVA analysis followed by Tukey’s post hoc test was performed on GraphPad Prism. The one-way ANOVA shows p-value less than 0.0001, indicating existence of significant difference. Following Tukey’s post hoc test shows that this significant difference lies in between all temperature groups except in between two lowest temperature and two highest temperature groups. This research, along with further researches for more accurate analysis, can be used to provide information about optimal yeast activity in bakery and brewery industries to minimize financial loss coming from failure to utilize yeast in optimum conditions.