3-hydroxy-4,5-dimethyl-2(5h)-furanone
nutty furan Key food odorantFound in 16 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.
Look up another compound — search by name, CAS number, PubChem CID, or FEMA #.
Key food odorant (generalist)
Dunkel et al. 2014Identified 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.
Properties
- Odor description
- curry, maple, caramel, fenugreek, seasoning
- Odor threshold — orthonasal, in clean water
- 0.001 ppb – 10.0 ppb median 5.0 ppb · 2 published values · see all 19 with sources
- CAS number
- 28664-35-9
- Retention index
- 2210
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.
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.
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
19 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
0.001 ppb – 10.0 ppbThe reference measurement — smelled in water. OAV is computed against this.
| Threshold | Matrix | Source | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.001 ppb | water_odor | Leffingwell | — |
| 10.0 ppb SIDA | water | Rychlik 1998 · 2 studies | — |
In a food matrix
0.080 ppb – 35.0 ppbMeasured in a real food, where the matrix shifts detection — not a clean-water value.
| Threshold | Matrix | Source | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.080 ppb | water (food: beef vegetable gravy) | Literature corpus | — |
| 0.080 ppb | water (food: pork vegetable gravy) | Literature corpus | — |
| 1.1 ppb | water (food: japanese soy sauce) | Literature corpus | — |
| 1.1 ppb | water (food: reference standard (water)) | Literature corpus | — |
| 1.7 ppb | water (food: pink guava) | Literature corpus | — |
| 7.5 ppb | water (food: unknown) | Literature corpus | — |
| 11.0 ppb | water (food: milk) | Literature corpus | — |
| 35.0 ppb | water (food: longjing green tea infusion) | Literature corpus | — |
Retronasal / in-mouth
0.080 ppb – 0.200 ppbTasted rather than smelled — a different sense, not comparable.
| Threshold | Matrix | Source | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.080 ppb SIDA | water_retronasal | Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies | — |
| 0.200 ppb SIDA | oil_retronasal | Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies | — |
Other matrix
0.200 ppb – 24.2 ppbMeasured in a non-aqueous medium (oil, starch, cellulose).
| Threshold | Matrix | Source | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.200 ppb SIDA | oil_orthonasal | Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies | — |
| 0.200 ppb | oil (sunflower oil) (food: cocoa beans) | Literature corpus | — |
| 0.200 ppb | oil (sunflower oil) (food: cocoa powder) | Literature corpus | — |
| 1.7 ppb SIDA | cellulose | Rychlik 1998 · 2 studies | — |
| 6.3 ppb | wine matrix (12% ethanol) (food: rum / red wine) | Literature corpus | — |
| 24.0 ppb | ethanol/water (food: rum / red wine) | Literature corpus | — |
| 24.2 ppb | ethanol/water 40/60 (food: rum (aged)) | Literature corpus | — |
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 shareEvery ingredient known to contain 3-hydroxy-4,5-dimethyl-2(5h)-furanone. 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 3-hydroxy-4,5-dimethyl-2(5h)-furanone in it.
The inverted compound index is a Pro feature — reverse-search any of 5,240 flavor molecules across the full graph.
Get a molecule-level pairing breakdown each week — which ingredients share a compound, and why it matters at the table. Free, no spam.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.
Try the pairing tools to see which ingredient combinations rely on 3-hydroxy-4,5-dimethyl-2(5h)-furanone, or compare two ingredients side-by-side.