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4-methoxybenzoic acid

sour acid

Found in 5 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

2D Lewis structure of 4-methoxybenzoic acid
2D Lewis Structure
Formula
C8H8O3
Molecular weight
152.15 g/mol
PubChem CID
7478 — full record on PubChem

Properties

Odor description
faint, sweet, balsamic
Volatility
medium
CAS number
100-09-4
Retention index
1451
Regulatory · United States

FEMA GRAS — Generally Recognized As Safe for flavoring use

✓ Exact match
FEMA number
3945
GRAS publication
GRAS 19
FEMA primary name
4-METHOXYBENZOIC ACID

Use-level matrix not extracted for this substance — check the source publication for current ppm guidance.

Source: FEMA GRAS publications 1-33.

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.

vanilla FlavorDB 2.0, Flavordb Odor Column 2 sources agree
1
cadaverous, faint, putrid, sweet FlavorDB 2.0
4
faint, sweet, balsamic shown above Llm Adjudicated
—
anise, chemical 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.

Found in

Measured impact first, then profile share

Every ingredient known to contain 4-methoxybenzoic acid. 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-methoxybenzoic acid in it.

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