CAMBRIDGE PRIZE LECTURE IMPROVING YEAST FERMENTATION PERFORMANCE

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Abstract
A number of factors affecting yeast fermentation performance have been investigated. These include the mode of substrate feeding, nutrient supplementation, temperature, osmotic pressure, oxygen, intracellular ethanol accumulation, and yeast ethanol tolerance. Nutrient supplementation was observed to play a key role in yeast fermentations employing high gravity media and at high temperatures. Furthermore, complete attenuation of high gravity wort (25°P) could be achieved by optimizing the yeast pitching rate, fermentation temperature, and level of wort oxygenation. Genetic manipulation techniques, such as spheroplast fusion, were successfully employed to obtain ethanol and osmotolerant yeast strains. In addition, a number of stable 2-deoxy-D-glucose resistant mutants, isolated from brewing and non-brewing yeast strains, were observed to rapidly utilize maltose and maltotriose in the presence of high concentrations of glucose. Fermentation and ethanol production rates were increased in these strains. Therefore, employing strategies of optimized fermentation conditions and strain development have resulted in improvements in yeast fermentation performance.

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