FERMENTATION VELOCITY OF YEASTS I. MEASUREMENT OF FERMENTATION VELOCITY AND THE EFFECTS OF EXPERIMENTAL CONDITIONS

Abstract

The fermentative vigour of yeasts considered especially as a racial and/or physiological character deserves, in view of its obvious practical importance, closer study than it has hitherto received. The first essential in pursuing this study is an accurate arid reproducible method for measuring the fermentation velocity of a yeast sample. In this paper, fermentation velocity is precisely defined as the amount of carbon dioxide evolved from a substrate per hour per gram of yeast under stipulated conditions, and a simple gasometric method for its determination is described. The manner in which the fermentation velocity so measured is influenced by the experimental conditions is then examined. As the outcome of these preliminary investigations, a standard procedure for the estimation of the fermentation velocity of yeasts is worked out Results obtained by its application will be reported in future papers in this series.