# Science of yeast



## zember311 (Jan 6, 2008)

Hello everyone, I am new to the site. But have spent alot of time reading your posts, alot of them ( if not all ) I haqve found enjoying, filled with information and alot of personality . You all seem to be a great bunch of people here. 


I found fine wines and it is one store I will never want to lose.


In my research, quest to calm idle hand syndrome of constantly having to have my nose deep into information like a mr wizard that drank way to much coffee, I found some interesting science about yeast and it blows my mind thinking about their life cycle.


I been researching the yeasts to find out where it first came from, how they are producing it for commercial use and what is the difference between yeasts. ( which was my biggest reason for the searching ) from bread yeasts to wine yeasts to ale yeasts so on and so forth.


The cool science behind all of this wine making,


on average 1 gram of yeast contains 30 billion yeast cells. so in a 5 gram pack WOW !. Thats just to start.


Lets say for simple math we start with 1 yeast cell. Every 2 hours a yeast cell will produce daughter cell. and this mother cell will produce on average 12 daughters before the cell dies off.


so if we take ONE cell


Hours - number of cells
0 - 1
2 - 2
4 - 4
6 - 8
8 - 16
10 - 32
12 - 64
14 - 128
16 - 256
18 - 512
20 - 1024
22 - 2048
24 - 4096


I notice a binary trait here, so were the first binary developers nothing more then wine brewers ?? haha


so by the time the very first yeast cell dies off after its 12th reproduction, there are now 4096 in a 24 hour time. 


It's a shame there is no real hard numbers since there are so many varibles in regards to each packet of yeast we get will have X amount of dead cells that will not regenerate after centerfuging and storage, then other X amount in that pack could already have been suspended on its first or 11th reproduction, and dont forget to factor in our concentrate/most factors that may kill some off.


but if we could take those numbers without varibles and anticipate each cell lived to it's fullest, imagine the peak # of yeast cells during fermentation ?


Just amazing. 


Kyle*Edited by: zember311 *


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## grapeman (Jan 6, 2008)

Welcome to the forum Kyle. Glad you can find a little information useful to you.


By the way I have counted three different batches and averaged the yeast cells out to 421,768,954,239! It's rough picking out each cell with my old eyes. I need to get out the reading glasses


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## JWMINNESOTA (Jan 6, 2008)

Welcome aboard Kyle, now just imagine how busy you will be as you take each possible ingredient, chemical, fruit, grape, etc. used to make wine and explore them as thoroughly as yeast! Could take a lifetime, might as well get some fermenting to enjoy along the way!


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## Wade E (Jan 6, 2008)

Welcome Kyle and it sounds like you already have the bug. do you have anything fermenting as of yet or have you made wine or beer in the past? Hope you hang around.


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## zember311 (Jan 6, 2008)

Thanks for the welcome everyone.


Yes I have the bug, it has been slowly brewing for awhile now. I guess it might be good and bad that I have been called a macgyver by everyone that meets me, ( i tend to dig into hobbies to deeply ) but within reason of sanety.






I am working on my 10th batch. all of which were real small scale, I ran into how wine brewing by mistake when searching internet sites for fresh water fish tank co2 generators for plants .


I started out with the gallon jug and pin holed ballons for air locks, I wasnt happy with the ballon because I could not tell exactly when it was done, so I made a 1500 ml version with a more seeable airlock.










since then I came up with some pretty good tasting wines from store bought concentrates, nothing fancy, but good to me. Cherries, and apples, and red grapes . ect. 


I got daring and moved up to gallon fermenters, right now I have two going, a cherry grape, and a white grape peach,










Nothing fancy, but I figured I would tweak out the mistakes small scale, so if I ever went full scale I would be ready to rock and roll.


but in the mean time on small scale I can still play with meters, and scales, and combinations and chemicals oh my


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