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Yeast Science Fair Project

Sugar Content and Juice Fermentation

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Sugar Content and Juice Fermentation | Science Fair Projects | STEM Projects
How does sugar content affect fermentation across different fruit juices? Yeast breaks down sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide. Juices with more sugar might produce more fermentation. You pour 250 milliliters each of three juices into separate containers: - Orange juice - Apple juice - Cranberry-grape juice You measure sugar content with a Brix meter before adding one gram of yeast. A set of orange juice containers without yeast serves as the control. After 72 hours you measure the sugar again and calculate how much was consumed. Orange juice had the highest starting sugar and produced the most fermentation. Its surface turned foamy. Apple and cranberry-grape juice turned murky with bubbles forming on top.

Hypothesis

The hypothesis is that the fruit juice with a higher percentage of sugar will produce more fermentation.

Method & Materials

You will label four containers for each type of juice, add 250ml of each juice to the containers, add one gram of yeast to each container, measure the sugar content before and after the fermentation process, and compare the results.
You will need a Brix meter, transparent containers, yeast, orange juice, apple juice, cranberry-grape juice, a cylinder, a gram scale, and a thermometer.

Results

The results showed that the orange juice produced the most fermentation, which supports the hypothesis that the juice with a higher sugar content will produce more fermentation. An interesting observation was that the orange juice turned foamy on the surface and a "gooey" substance formed on the bottom of the container.

Why do this project?

This science project is interesting because it can be used by wineries to determine which fruit juice ferments best.

Also Consider

Experiment variations to consider include using more yeast and using another type of juice with two of them mixed together like the cranberry-grape juice.

Full project details

Additional information and source material for this project are available below.
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