Beer, fruit brandy, wine, dough, and bread before and after
baking,
in the middle a yeast cube used for their production.
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Yeast is an essential helper in the production of food. No matter,
whether dough is used for making pizza, bread or cake, or whether
alcohol in beer or wine is produced, yeast always catalyzes the same
reaction: under exclusion of oxygen, sugar is fermented to alcohol
and carbon dioxide. The formula for this process is
C6H12O6 → 2
C2H5OH + 2 CO2
During baking one utilizes the production of gas to loosen and
enlarge the volume of the product. One gram of fermented sugar
releases 125 ml of CO2. The alcoholic fermentation lasts
over days to weeks and forms more than 500 g of alcohol per kg of
sugar.
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Microbes in the Kitchen
