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2-methylpentane

Found in 1 ingredient across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

Properties

Odor description
cooked, floral, green, waxy, fruity, apple, rose, fermented
Odor threshold — in a food matrix
0.634 ppb 1 published value · see all 2 with sources
CAS number
107-83-5
Retention index
554
Not in FEMA GRAS publications 1-33. Of 3,367 listed flavoring substances, none match this compound name. May still be food-safe under other regulatory routes (FDA 21 CFR 172, EFSA, JECFA) — check femaflavor.org for the authoritative current list.

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.

cooked, floral, green, waxy, fruity, apple, rose, fermented shown above FlavorDB 2.0
1
floral, green, waxy Flavordb Odor Column
—
cooked Flavordb Odor Column
—
fruity, floral, apple, rose, fermented Flavordb Odor Column
—

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

2 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

0.634 ppb

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

Threshold Matrix Source Paper
0.634 ppb water (food: wine) Literature corpus —

In air

7000 ppb

Airborne detection — not comparable to a water threshold.

Threshold Matrix Source Paper
7000 ppb air Nagata 2003 —

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 (0.634 ppb, the engine's canonical value — see the 2 published values). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.

Food Concentration (ppb) OAV Source
wine 0.6 0.99 —

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 2-methylpentane. 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-methylpentane in it. Full concentrations are in the OAV table above.

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Try the pairing tools to see which ingredient combinations rely on 2-methylpentane, or compare two ingredients side-by-side.