3-hydroxy-4,5-dimethylfuran-2(5h)-one

caramel furan Key food odorant

Found in 3 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. 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.

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

Properties

Odor description: savory
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

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.

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 ppb

The 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 ppb

Measured 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 ppb

Tasted 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 ppb

Measured 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 share

Every ingredient known to contain 3-hydroxy-4,5-dimethylfuran-2(5h)-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 3-hydroxy-4,5-dimethylfuran-2(5h)-one in it.

237 cmpds

344 cmpds

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