A C O M P ARATIVE S T U D Y O F

T H E R A TE O F F E R MEN TATION
O F T H E F O L L OWING
M A T ERIALS:
Wheat flour, Potato juice, carrot juice etc.
The purpose of the experiment is – To
compare the rate of fermentation of the
given samples of wheat flour, potato and
carrot juice. I became interested in this
idea when I saw some daily life uses of
fermentation like yogurt formation,
south Indian dishes, breads & so on
and wanted to find out some scientific
facts about fermentation.

The primary benefit of fermentation is

the conversion of sugars and other
carbohydrates, e.g., converting juice
into wine, grains into beer,
carbohydrates into carbon dioxide to
leaven bread, and sugars in vegetables
into preservative organic acids.
Fermentation is a metabolic process
that produces chemical changes in
organic substrates through the action
of enzymes. In biochemistry, it is
narrowly defined as the extraction of
energy from carbohydrates in the
absence of oxygen. In the context of
food production, it may more broadly
refer to any process in which the activity
of microorganisms brings about a
desirable change to a foodstuff or
beverage. The science of fermentation is
known as zymology.
The term precision fermentation refers to
fermentation using precision biology (the
latter of which referring to the coming
together of modern information technologies
(i.e. machine learning, artificial intelligence,
cloud-based computing), and modern
biotechnologies as genetic engineering,
synthetic biology, metabolic engineering,
systems biology, bioinformatics, and
computational biology). It is a process that
allows us to program micro-organisms to
produce almost any complex organic
molecule. Precision fermentation is
particularly efficient for producing protein as
well. By producing it this way (in tightly-
controlled environments, at optimized
temperature), a feedstock efficiency of 40%-
80% can be attained.
In microorganisms, fermentation is the
primary means of producing ATP by the
degradation of organic nutrients
anaerobically.
Fermentation is used for preservation in
a process that produces lactic
acid found in such sour foods as pickled
cucumbers, kimchi, and yogurt, as well
as for producing alcoholic beverages
such as wine and beer. Fermentation
also occurs within the gastrointestinal
tracts of all animals, including humans.
Fermentation is a biochemical process which is carried
out with the help of enzymes. Basically, fermentation is
the slow of complex organic compounds into a simpler
compounds by the action of enzymes.

Foods like wheat flour are rich sources of starch which

undergo fermentation by the enzyme diastase to give
maltose.
Diastase
Starch Maltose

The fruit and vegetable juices contains sugars like

sucrose, glucose and fructose. These sugars when
fermented in the presence of yeast cells are converted
into ethyl alcohol.
Invertase
Sucrose + H2O CO2 + Glucose + Fructose

Glucose Zymase CO2 + Ethyl alcohol

The rate of fermentation depends upon the temperature,

pH concentration of the carbohydrates, Different source
of material contain different amounts of carbohydrates,
hence, they have different rates of fermentation.
 1. CONICAL FLASK 2. TEST TUBE 3. GLASS ROD

4. CARROT JUICE 5. POTATO JUICE 6. WHEAT FLOUR

7. DISTILLED WATER 8.. BALLOON 9.YEAST

Take a conical flask (100 mL) fitted
with a delivery tube Remove the
delivery tube and add 10 g of wheat
flour and about 80 mL of the distilled
water into the flask. Stir the contents of
the flask with a glass rod and add 2 g
of yeast. Stir the contents again. Fit the
delivery tube into the mouth of the
flask. Tie a balloon with the help of a
thread to the upper end of the delivery
tube. As the fermentation proceeds,
carbon dioxide gas is evolved and the
balloon inflates. The extent to which
the balloon inflates in the given time is
the measure of the rate of reaction.
Repeat the experiment with other
materials such as potato juice and
carrot juice.
Time required for the fermentation :
1. Wheat flour :- 10hrs
2. Potato juice:- 13hrs
3. Carrot juice:- 1.5hrs
Thus Wheat flour takes the
maximum time and the potato
juice takes the minimum time.