The investigation that will be performed will be answering the question, Does Vanilla Extract, Salt, and Flour effect the Rate of Fermentation in yeast? Alcoholic Fermentation is an anaerobic process which takes 2 pyruvic acids + NADH and turns it in to alcohol, NAD+, and carbon dioxide. Alcoholic Fermentation is an important process that is commonly used to make the dough of bread rise. The reason that the bread rises is because the ingredient of Yeast releases carbon dioxide which makes the dough rise and get fluffier. Yeast allows this process to occur. It allows this process to occur because it is one of the few organisms that can go through Alcoholic Fermentation. Yeast breaks down glucose, which helps make alcohol and releases …show more content…
The ingredients include vanilla extract, salt, and flour. Based on previous observations from past yeast and sugar solution labs, the higher the sugar solution the faster the rate of fermentation is. The first ingredient that will be tested is vanilla extract. vanilla extract contains high alcohol content and low sugar content. When using the mixture of yeast and vanilla extract the bread will often be hard and will have not risen at all. It will not rise depending on the kind of vanilla extract because the extract has such a high alcohol content that it will actually damage and kill the yeast. http://www.chowhound.com/post/vanilla-extract-kill-yeast-1007835 However, it will only kill the yeast if it comes into direct contact. The ingredient of vanilla extract will decrease the Rate of Fermentation. The only way for it not to decrease is if there is very minimal extract and if they do not come into direct contact. Coming into direct contact in this lab is impossible to …show more content…
Salt is an ingredient used to dry out any sort of foods quickly. It is common sense when it comes to putting yeast and salt in direct contact with each other when kneading the dough. If they become in direct contact with each other it is very rare that the dough will rise a lot. Salt can still help the yeast rise but it will not rise nearly as much as yeast with no mix. If there is not salt in the mix the dough is more soft and will be easily inflated. (http://www.genuineideas.com/ArticlesIndex/saltyeast.html) The ingredient Salt will more or less decrease the rate of Fermentation. The Yeast has a better chance of rising more on its own with no mix. Salt can damage the structure which will make the yeast not rise at such a rapid pace. Salt can help the yeast rise but not as much as the other ingredients. However, since the amount of Salt being added is not all that big it may not have that big of an effect on the Rate of Fermentation. Previous labs show that when the sugar solution is high the rate of fermentation increases. This means that salt can still have a chance of increasing the rate because the sugar solution its being mixed with can help the yeast