New yeast can ferment more sugar, make more cellulosic ethanol

New yeast can ferment more sugar, make more cellulosic ethanol

www.physorg.com

The new yeast can ferment the sugar arabinose in addition to the other sugars found in plant material such as corn stalks, straw, switchgrass and other crop residues.

"Natural yeast can ferment three sugars: galactose, manose and glucose," Ho said. "The original Ho yeast added xylose to that, and now the fifth, arabinose, has been added."

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Not only can this newly developed yeast ferment an additional type of sugar, it's also more resistant to acetic acid, which slows the process and adds to production costs:

"It inhibits the microorganism. It doesn't produce as much biofuel, and it produces it more slowly," Mosier said. "If it slows down too much, it's not a good industrial process."

This new development could aid in providing an affordable, renewable alternative to oil.


TheAssoc.

www.physorg.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

The question is, will this help my brewing operation?

Ethanol is cool and all but I want to drink a better beer!

reply to post by Mr Headshot


Well, more efficient production of ethanol might lower the overall cost of your operation,

so...

Hooray cheaper beer!

(Maybe.)


TheAssoc.

I was looking into making a little ethanol for uh... fuel... once and it seems I remember stumbling across some yeast from France that can tolerate 30 something percent alcahol which seemed impressive at the time. Now instead of grapes or corn, maybe we can make hooch from grass clippings to eh? Arabinose sugars is new to me, pretty interesting, thanks for posting it.