NOVELTY - A composition comprising yeast, gums and polyhydroxy compounds, is new.    USE - The yeast composition is useful for ethanol production, fermentation and leavening processes (claimed).    ADVANTAGE - The yeast preparation has improved shelf life over standard liquid yeast of up to 90 days, and shorter lag phase and better overall performance than the corresponding compressed yeast, and does not require agitation. The yeast preparation enables direct pitching of production fermentors therefore bypassing the propagation step. The polyhydroxy compound stabilizes yeast vitality and the gum stabilizes consistency, preventing yeast settling. A comparison of the ethanol production capability of active dry yeast, compressed yeast and stabilized liquid yeast (SLY) was performed as follows. Fuel ethanol strain of Saccharomyces cerevisiae was mixed with 3.2% (w/v) of 95% glycerol and 0.1% (w/v) of Xanthan gum. The yeast strains were inoculated with corn mash and production of ethanol was measured at 2 hours intervals for 12 hours, where the corn mash is of industrial origin, contains 60% backset and has already been treated with alpha-amylase. The SLY had a faster fermentation role than either compressed yeast or active dry yeast, and provided better ethanol yield than the compressed yeast.    DETAILED DESCRIPTION - INDEPENDENT CLAIMS are included for:    (1) ethanol production, involves directly pitching the yeast composition directly to the production fermentor;    (2) a liquid composition comprising bacteria, one or more gums and one or more polyhydroxy compounds;    (3) method for fermentation, comprising combining the yeast composition or the bacteria composition with a fermentable substance; and    (4) method for leavening, comprises combining the yeast composition with a dough.    DESCRIPTION OF DRAWING(S) - The figure shows graph representing the better performance of a stabilized yeast preparation against regular compressed yeast and dry yeast during the first 12 hours of corn mash fermentation.