The tolerance of sol-gel immobilised and free Saccharomyces cerevisiae to ethanol was studied. The effects of ethanol preincubation time showed that the specific death velocity decreased from 2 x 10(5) c.f.u. min(-1) for free cells to 2 x 10(4) c.f.u. min(-1) for immobilised cells thus indicating that immobilised yeast was far less sensitive to the ethanol damage. The specific glucose consumption of immobilised and free cells on a per cell basis was 3 x 10(-12) g cell(-1) h(-1) and 9 x 10(12) g cell(-1) h(-1), respectively.