1-octen-3-one

fruity ketone Key food odorant

Found in 64 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

Look up another compound — search by name, CAS number, PubChem CID, or FEMA #.

2D Lewis Structure

Formula: C8H14O
Molecular weight: 126.20 g/mol
PubChem CID: 61346 — full record on PubChem

Key food odorant (generalist)

Dunkel et al. 2014

Identified in the meta-analysis of 227 food samples as one of 16 generalist odorants — appears in >25% of foods, typically from generic Maillard, lipid-oxidation, or fermentation pathways. Characteristic odor: mushroom-like.

Source: Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2014, 53, 7124–7143

Properties

Odor description: mushroom, metallic, earthy
Odor threshold — orthonasal, in clean water: 0.005 ppb 2 published values · see all 17 with sources
Volatility: high
CAS number: 4312-99-6
Retention index: 979

Regulatory · United States

FEMA GRAS — Generally Recognized As Safe for flavoring use

✓ Exact match

FEMA number: 3515
GRAS publication: GRAS 10
FEMA primary name: 1-OCTEN-3-ONE

Use-level matrix not extracted for this substance — check the source publication for current ppm guidance.

Source: FEMA GRAS publications 1-33.

How this molecule is described

Sources disagree about odour more often than they disagree about chemistry. Rather than show one answer, here is every description on file with how many ingredient records carry it.

Descriptions on file

Ordered by how many independent descriptor streams give each wording, then by how often it appears. The bar is still replication — one source copied onto many ingredients scores high there — so the two can disagree.

mushroom, metal Flavornet Cas, FlavorDB 2.0 2 sources agree

mushroom FlavorDB 2.0

dirty, earthy, herbal, metal, mushroom, musty FlavorDB 2.0

mushroom-like FlavorDB 2.0

ginger, chili FlavorDB 2.0

mushroom, metallic FlavorDB 2.0

Bars are the share of ingredient records carrying each description. High agreement means the sources replicate each other — not necessarily that they are right.

Published thresholds

17 measured values from the literature. Grouped by what was actually measured — a threshold smelled in clean water, tasted in the mouth, or measured in a real food are three different quantities and are not pooled.

Orthonasal, in clean water

0.005 ppb

The reference measurement — smelled in water. OAV is computed against this.

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.005 ppb	water_odor	Leffingwell	—
0.005 ppb SIDA	water	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—

In a food matrix

0.005 ppb – 1.0 ppb

Measured in a real food, where the matrix shifts detection — not a clean-water value.

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.005 ppb SIDA	water (food: smoked cooked loin (pork))	Literature corpus	31894982
0.007 ppb SIDA	water (food: longjing green tea infusion)	Literature corpus	31894982
0.016 ppb SIDA	water (food: green tea infusion (jingshan cha))	Literature corpus	31894982
0.016 ppb SIDA	water (food: reference standard (water))	Literature corpus	31894982
0.036 ppb SIDA	water (food: beef vegetable gravy)	Literature corpus	31894982
0.036 ppb SIDA	water (food: pork vegetable gravy)	Literature corpus	31894982
1.0 ppb SIDA	water (food: hand-squeezed grapefruit juice)	Literature corpus	31894982
6137 ppb SIDA	water (food: unknown)	Literature corpus	31894982
Flagged: 236038× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden.

Retronasal / in-mouth

0.010 ppb – 0.300 ppb

Tasted rather than smelled — a different sense, not comparable.

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.010 ppb SIDA	water_retronasal	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—
0.100 ppb	water_flavor	Leffingwell	—
0.300 ppb SIDA	oil_retronasal	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—

Other matrix

2.0 ppb – 10.0 ppb

Measured in a non-aqueous medium (oil, starch, cellulose).

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.044 ppb SIDA	starch	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—
Flagged: 136× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden.
2.0 ppb SIDA	cellulose	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—
10.0 ppb SIDA	oil_orthonasal	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—
10.0 ppb SIDA	oil (sunflower oil) (food: cocoa beans)	Literature corpus	31894982

Only values we can attribute are listed. Where a compendium's licence does not permit public attribution its figures are omitted here, so every number on this page traces to a citable source.

Where you'd actually smell it

Odor Activity Value = measured concentration ÷ odor threshold (0.016 ppb, the engine's canonical value — see the 17 published values). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.

Food	Concentration (ppb)	OAV	Source
egg	1.0	62.5 ⚡	—

Concentrations from PubMed Central Open Access papers (free literature corpus, MIT-style licensed). Copper = OAV ≥ 10 (strongly perceptible). Green = OAV ≥ 1 (perceptible).

Found in

Measured impact first, then profile share

Every ingredient known to contain 1-octen-3-one. Ingredients with a measured concentration come first, ranked by odour activity; the rest follow by how large a share of that ingredient's profile this molecule is. The figure beside each is how many different compounds that ingredient has in total — not the concentration of 1-octen-3-one in it. Full concentrations are in the OAV table above.

17 cmpds

29 cmpds

32 cmpds

43 cmpds