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2-methoxy-4-propylphenol

spicy phenol Key food odorant

Found in 11 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

2D Lewis structure of 2-methoxy-4-propylphenol
2D Lewis Structure
Formula
C10H14O2
Molecular weight
166.22 g/mol
PubChem CID
17739 — full record on PubChem

Key food odorant (individualist)

Dunkel et al. 2014

Identified in the meta-analysis of 227 food samples as one of 151 individualist odorants — appears in <5% of foods, carries the diagnostic signature of specific ingredients. Characteristic odor: phenolic.

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

Properties

Odor description
allspice, anise, balsam, clove, fishy, pepper, phenol, phenolic, powdery, sharp, soapy, spicy, sweet
Odor threshold — in a food matrix
1361 ppb 1 published value · see all 3 with sources
Volatility
medium
CAS number
2785-87-7
Regulatory · United States

FEMA GRAS — Generally Recognized As Safe for flavoring use

✓ Exact match
FEMA number
3598
GRAS publication
GRAS 12
FEMA primary name
2-METHOXY-4-PROPYLPHENOL

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.

Also filed as
4-propylguaiacol

Same molecule, unified here — previously counted and displayed as separate compounds.

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.

phenol Flavornet Cas
—
allspice, anise, balsam, clove, fishy, pepper, phenol, phenolic, powdery, sharp, soapy, spicy, sweet shown above FlavorDB 2.0
10

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

Unresolved

An authoritative source gives phenol, which disagrees with the description shown above. Held rather than switched: the authority is terser than the corpus here, and which should win is a rule we have not set.

Published thresholds

3 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.

In a food matrix

1361 ppb

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

Threshold Matrix Source Paper
1361 ppb water (food: unknown) Literature corpus 38835963

Other matrix

1.9 ppb

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

Threshold Matrix Source Paper
1.9 ppb ethanol/water 40/60 (food: rum (aged)) Literature corpus 38835963
1.9 ppb ethanol/water 40/60 (food: rum (young)) Literature corpus 38835963

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.

Found in

Measured impact first, then profile share

Every ingredient known to contain 2-methoxy-4-propylphenol. 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 2-methoxy-4-propylphenol in it.

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