4-methylphenol
spicy phenol Key food odorantFound in 98 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.
Look up another compound — search by name, CAS number, PubChem CID, or FEMA #.
- Formula
- C7H8O
- Molecular weight
- 108.14 g/mol
- PubChem CID
- 2879 — full record on PubChem
Key food odorant (intermediary)
Dunkel et al. 2014Identified in the meta-analysis of 227 food samples as one of 57 intermediary odorants — appears in 5–25% of foods. Characteristic odor: phenolic, smoky, barnyard.
Properties
- Odor description
- phenolic, smoky, animal, medicinal
- Odor threshold — orthonasal, in clean water
- 55.0 ppb 1 published value · see all 16 with sources
- Volatility
- high
- CAS number
- 106-44-5
- Retention index
- 1100
FEMA GRAS — Generally Recognized As Safe for flavoring use
- FEMA number
- 2671
- GRAS publication
- GRAS 3
- FEMA primary name
- 2-METHOXY-4-METHYLPHENOL
Use-level matrix not extracted for this substance — check the source publication for current ppm guidance.
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.
Same molecule, unified here — previously counted and displayed as separate compounds.
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
16 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
55.0 ppbThe reference measurement — smelled in water. OAV is computed against this.
| Threshold | Matrix | Source | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 55.0 ppb SIDA | water | Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies | — |
In a food matrix
1.0 ppb – 1576 ppbMeasured in a real food, where the matrix shifts detection — not a clean-water value.
| Threshold | Matrix | Source | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1.0 ppb | water (food: beef vegetable gravy) | Literature corpus | — |
| 1.0 ppb | water (food: pork vegetable gravy) | Literature corpus | — |
| 3.9 ppb | water (food: reference standard (water)) | Literature corpus | — |
| 54.0 ppb | water (food: wine) | Literature corpus | — |
| 55.0 ppb | water (food: smoked cooked loin (pork)) | Literature corpus | — |
| 100 ppb | water (food: litsea pungens fruit) | Literature corpus | — |
| 550 ppb | water (food: longjing green tea infusion) | Literature corpus | — |
| 1042 ppb | water (food: tea) | Literature corpus | — |
| 1088 ppb | water (food: beef) | Literature corpus | — |
| 1576 ppb | water (food: unknown) | Literature corpus | — |
In air
0.054 ppbAirborne detection — not comparable to a water threshold.
| Threshold | Matrix | Source | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.054 ppb | air | Nagata 2003 | — |
Other matrix
68.0 ppb – 82.0 ppbMeasured in a non-aqueous medium (oil, starch, cellulose).
| Threshold | Matrix | Source | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 68.0 ppb | oil (sunflower oil) (food: cocoa beans) | Literature corpus | — |
| 68.0 ppb | oil (sunflower oil) (food: cocoa powder) | Literature corpus | — |
| 81.5 ppb | ethanol/water 40/60 (food: rum (aged)) | Literature corpus | — |
| 82.0 ppb | ethanol/water (food: rum) | 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 (61.5 ppb, the engine's canonical value — see the 16 published values). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.
| Food | Concentration (ppb) | OAV | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| beef | 3800.0 | 61.8 ⚡ | Corpus paper |
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 shareEvery ingredient known to contain 4-methylphenol. 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-methylphenol in it. Full concentrations are in the OAV table above.
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