4-hydroxy-2,5-dimethylfuran-3(2h)-one
caramel furan Key food odorantFound in 4 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.
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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. Characteristic odor: caramel-like, strawberry.
Properties
- Odor description
- caramel, strawberry, sweet, cotton candy
- Odor threshold — orthonasal, in clean water
- 0.040 ppb – 5.0 ppb median 2.5 ppb · 2 published values · see all 29 with sources
- CAS number
- 3658-77-3
- Retention index
- 2035
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
29 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
0.040 ppb – 5.0 ppbThe reference measurement — smelled in water. OAV is computed against this.
| Threshold | Matrix | Source | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.040 ppb | water_odor | Leffingwell | — |
| 5.0 ppb SIDA | water | Rychlik 1998 · 4 studies | — |
In a food matrix
5.0 ppb – 1025 ppbMeasured in a real food, where the matrix shifts detection — not a clean-water value.
| Threshold | Matrix | Source | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5.0 ppb | water (food: longjing green tea infusion) | Literature corpus | — |
| 10.0 ppb | water (food: maillard model (glucose + proline)) | Literature corpus | — |
| 10.0 ppb | water (food: coffee, bread, tomato, strawberry) | Literature corpus | — |
| 10.0 ppb | water (food: coffee) | Literature corpus | — |
| 10.0 ppb | water (food: coffee, bread, tomato products) | Literature corpus | — |
| 10.0 ppb | water (food: maillard model (amadori compound degradation)) | Literature corpus | — |
| 10.0 ppb | water (food: maillard model, strawberry, coffee, bread) | Literature corpus | — |
| 10.0 ppb | water (food: coffee, strawberry) | Literature corpus | — |
| 25.0 ppb | water (food: japanese soy sauce) | Literature corpus | — |
| 34.0 ppb | water (food: milk) | Literature corpus | — |
| 40.0 ppb | water (food: pink guava) | Literature corpus | — |
| 100 ppb | water (food: coffee) | Literature corpus | — |
| 160 ppb | water (food: beef vegetable gravy) | Literature corpus | — |
| 160 ppb | water (food: pork vegetable gravy) | Literature corpus | — |
| 160 ppb | water (food: reference standard (water)) | Literature corpus | — |
| 535 ppb | water (food: unknown) | Literature corpus | — |
| 751 ppb | water (food: peanut) | Literature corpus | — |
| 1025 ppb | water (food: wine) | Literature corpus | — |
Retronasal / in-mouth
4.0 ppb – 30.0 ppbTasted rather than smelled — a different sense, not comparable.
| Threshold | Matrix | Source | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4.0 ppb SIDA | oil_retronasal | Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies | — |
| 30.0 ppb SIDA | water_retronasal | Rychlik 1998 · 2 studies | — |
Other matrix
13.0 ppb – 53.5 ppbMeasured in a non-aqueous medium (oil, starch, cellulose).
| Threshold | Matrix | Source | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 13.0 ppb SIDA | starch | Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies | — |
| 21.0 ppb | citrate buffer ph 3.8 (food: orange juice (reconstituted from concentrate)) | Literature corpus | — |
| 25.0 ppb SIDA | oil_orthonasal | Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies | — |
| 25.0 ppb | oil (sunflower oil) (food: cocoa beans) | Literature corpus | — |
| 25.0 ppb | oil (sunflower oil) (food: cocoa powder) | Literature corpus | — |
| 51.0 ppb | wine matrix (12% ethanol) (food: red wine) | Literature corpus | — |
| 53.5 ppb SIDA | cellulose | Rychlik 1998 · 2 studies | — |
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 4-hydroxy-2,5-dimethylfuran-3(2h)-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 4-hydroxy-2,5-dimethylfuran-3(2h)-one in it.
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