To what extent does temperature effect the rate of anaerobic respiration in bread making?
Introduction: This experiment monitors the effect of temperature on anaerobic respiration, specifically in bread making. In the context of bread making, this experiment would simulate the stage in which bread is allowed time to rise before being cooked and thus could be used to find out how to make bread rise faster.
Bread making is an art that has been going on for approximately 30,000 years and as well as being a major food source for many additionally has huge cultural and political significance. In order to create the averaage loaf of bread, yeast needs to be added to the mix to leaven the dough (ferment and rise). Yeast respires anaerobically, with Glucose (in the case of bread this is in the form of sugar) being used to create carbon dioxide (which makes bread rise and gives bread its airy texture), ethanol (which is killed off in the bread making process by the heat applied during baking as ethanol evaporates at approximately 78.1c) and energy (used to perform processes such as reproduction). In symbol equation form, this would be C6H12O6 --> 2CO2 + 2CH3-CH2-OH. The importance of this process is that without the CO2 produced by yeast, bread would not rise (it is for this reason why yeast is not used for flat breads).
