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Ethanol contained in alcoholic beverages is produced by means of fermentation induced by yeast. Liquors are distilled from grains, fruits, vegetables, or sugar that have already gone through alcoholic fermentation. Alcohol products: Natural sugars present in grapes;
Dry winemaking yeast (left) and yeast nutrients used in the rehydration process to stimulate yeast cells. Upon the introduction of active yeasts to the grape must, phosphates are attached to the sugar and the six-carbon sugar molecules begin to be split into three-carbon pieces and go through a series of rearrangement reactions.
Yeast, and yeast nutrition, is mixed in the syrup. One gram pure yeast consumes approximately 0.2 grams sugar. Yeasts will usually die out once the alcohol level reaches about 15% due to the toxicity of alcohol on the yeast cells' physiology while the more alcohol tolerant Saccharomyces species take over.
The primary role of yeast is to convert the sugars present (namely glucose) in the grape must into alcohol.The yeast accomplishes this by utilizing glucose through a series of metabolic pathways that, in the presence of oxygen, produces not only large amounts of energy for the cell but also many different intermediates that the cell needs to function.
[11] [12] It is used to make bread dough rise: the carbon dioxide forms bubbles, expanding the dough into a foam. [13] [14] The ethanol is the intoxicating agent in alcoholic beverages such as wine, beer and liquor. [15] Fermentation of feedstocks, including sugarcane, maize, and sugar beets, produces ethanol that is added to gasoline. [16]
The French chemist Louis Pasteur founded zymology, when in 1856 he connected yeast to fermentation. [9] When studying the fermentation of sugar to alcohol by yeast, Pasteur concluded that the fermentation was catalyzed by a vital force, called "ferments", within the yeast cells. The "ferments" were thought to function only within living organisms.