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1-propanol

floral alcohol

Found in 112 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

2D Lewis structure of 1-propanol
2D Lewis Structure
Formula
C3H8O
Molecular weight
60.10 g/mol
PubChem CID
1031 — full record on PubChem

Properties

Odor description
sweet, pungent
Odor threshold — orthonasal, in clean water
7820 ppb – 9000 ppb median 8410 ppb · 2 published values · see all 10 with sources
Volatility
high
CAS number
71-23-8
Retention index
799
Regulatory · United States

FEMA GRAS — Generally Recognized As Safe for flavoring use

✓ Exact match
FEMA number
None
GRAS publication
GRAS 2
FEMA primary name
1-Propanol

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.

sweet, pungent shown above Flavornet Cas, Flavornet Name, FlavorDB 2.0, Flavordb Odor Column 4 sources agree
6
menthol FlavorDB 2.0, Flavordb Odor Column 2 sources agree
1
green, sweet, honey, malty FlavorDB 2.0, Flavordb Odor Column 2 sources agree
1
fruity, sweaty FlavorDB 2.0, Flavordb Odor Column 2 sources agree
1
alcohol, alcoholic, fermented, fusel, musty, peanut, pungent FlavorDB 2.0
101
apple, rose, fermented, chemical FlavorDB 2.0
2

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

10 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

7820 ppb – 9000 ppb

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

Threshold Matrix Source Paper
7820 ppb SIDA water Rychlik 1998 · 2 studies —
9000 ppb water_odor Leffingwell —

In a food matrix

0.160 ppb – 24.0 ppb

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

Threshold Matrix Source Paper
0.160 ppb water (food: rum) Literature corpus 26283896
0.950 ppb water (food: pork) Literature corpus 26283896
4.5 ppb water (food: rice) Literature corpus 26283896
5.6 ppb water (food: unknown) Literature corpus 26283896
24.0 ppb water (food: fish) Literature corpus 26283896
9000 ppb water (food: reference standard (water)) Literature corpus 26283896
Flagged: 1775× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden.

In air

94.0 ppb – 14125 ppb

Airborne detection — not comparable to a water threshold.

Threshold Matrix Source Paper
94.0 ppb air Nagata 2003 —
14125 ppb air (C2_cometto_muniz_abraham) Cometto-Muñiz (PMC) —

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 (14.81 ppb, the engine's canonical value — see the 10 published values). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.

Food Concentration (ppb) OAV Source
spirit 300000.0 20257 ⚡ DOI
white wine 300000.0 20257 ⚡ DOI
wine 10020.0 677 ⚡ PMID 30704594
grape 10000.0 675 ⚡ PMID 34623142
sage 2894.0 195 ⚡ Corpus paper

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-propanol. 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-propanol in it. Full concentrations are in the OAV table above.

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