• Beer plush cluster
  • Beer plush front
  • Beer plush angle
  • Beer plush side
  • Beer plush back
  • %s under a microscope!
Size Specs

Beer & Bread (Saccharomyces cerevisiae)

Come and get it! This microbe is a baker, and a brewer -- and a scientist to boot. Pretty amazing! Learn about the secrets to its success.

Featured on Ologies episode about Zymology:

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Sizes:

Beer & Bread (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) Beer & Bread (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) GMEU-PD-0060
£11.95
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Product Details

Additional Information

More Information
Sizes Giantmicrobes are based on actual microbes, cells, organisms and other critters, only 1,000,000 times actual size!
Gigantic (GG) 40-60cm
XL (XL) 25-38cm
Original (PD) 12-20cm
Minis (MM) 5-10cm each
Keychain (KC) 5-10cm with clip
Materials Plush from all new materials. Stuffed with polyester fiber fill. Surface washable: sponge with water & soap, air dry.
Packaging Each plush microbe includes a printed card with fun, educational and fascinating facts about the actual microbe or cell.
Safety Every product meets or exceeds U.S. and European standards for safety. For ages 3 and up.

All about Beer & Bread (Saccharomyces cerevisiae)

FACTS: For at least six thousand years, Saccharomyces cerevisiae has been used to make beer and bread! (It is also one of the many varieties of yeast used to make wine.) Its Latin name means “sugar fungus of the beer” – though it is widely used in biomedical research as well because it is inexpensive and grows quickly. Yeast cells divide every 90 minutes, so one cell can become 50,000 in less than a day. One droplet can contain 5,000,000 cells!

Yeast contains special enzymes that turn sugar molecules into carbon dioxide and alcohol. ("En zume" means "in yeast" in Greek.) The carbon dioxide gas makes bread rise and causes the bubbles in beer. The alcohol makes, well, the alcohol.

In bread, the alcohol evaporates. But in beer and wine, the alcohol level increases until the yeast perishes (which is why the alcohol percentage level in non-distilled beverages is limited to the mid-teens).

So how did humanity discover the secrets of yeast so many millennia ago? The air is filled with tiny wild yeast spores. At some point, one must have floated down and settled on a baker's dough or a jug of juice and the magical effects of yeast were revealed!

 
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