4-ethylphenol

spicy phenol Key food odorant

Found in 44 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

2D Lewis Structure

Formula: C8H10O
Molecular weight: 122.16 g/mol
PubChem CID: 31242 — 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, smoky.

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

Properties

Odor description: phenolic, medicinal, smoky, barnyard
Odor threshold — in a food matrix: 13.0 ppb – 390 ppb median 21.0 ppb · 3 published values · see all 7 with sources
Volatility: high
CAS number: 123-07-9
Retention index: 2100

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.

Also filed as

4-ethyl-phenol

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.

spicy, smoky, phenolic Flavornet Cas, Flavornet Name, Flavordb Odor Column 3 sources agree

—

alcohol, castoreum, guaiacol, medicinal, phenol, phenolic, smoke, spice FlavorDB 2.0

phenol, spice, alcohol, medicinal, phenolic, castoreum, smoke, guaiacol FlavorDB 2.0

caramel, peach, chemical, earthy FlavorDB 2.0

phenolic, smoky FlavorDB 2.0

leather rot off-odour FlavorDB 2.0

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

7 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

13.0 ppb – 390 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
13.0 ppb	water (food: reference standard (water))	Literature corpus	—
21.0 ppb	water (food: smoked cooked loin (pork))	Literature corpus	—
390 ppb	water (food: longjing green tea infusion)	Literature corpus	—

Other matrix

17.0 ppb – 173 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.021 ppb	unknown	PMC open access	—
Flagged: 4452× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden.
17.0 ppb	wine matrix (12% ethanol) (food: rum / red wine)	Literature corpus	—
170 ppb	ethanol/water (food: rum / red wine)	Literature corpus	—
173 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.

Where you'd actually smell it

Odor Activity Value = measured concentration ÷ odor threshold (97.0 ppb, the engine's canonical value — see the 7 published values). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.

Food	Concentration (ppb)	OAV	Source
wine	420.0	4.33	PMID 24043819
madeira wine	33.0	0.34	DOI

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 4-ethylphenol. 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 4-ethylphenol in it. Full concentrations are in the OAV table above.

565 cmpds

10 cmpds

19 cmpds

22 cmpds