heptanol

floral alcohol

Found in 14 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

Ambiguous name

“heptanol” does not identify one molecule. May be 1-, 2-, 3- or 4-heptanol. The alias map had been asserting 3-heptanol.

We assign no CAS number, structure or odour threshold to this entry. Guessing one would make the record look more certain than the evidence is.

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

Properties

Odor description: herb
Odor threshold — orthonasal, in clean water: 3.0 ppb 1 published value · see all 5 with sources
CAS number: 111-70-6
Retention index: 981

Regulatory · United States

FEMA GRAS — Generally Recognized As Safe for flavoring use

? Partial match

FEMA number: 2548
GRAS publication: GRAS 3
FEMA primary name: HEPTYL ALCOHOL-1-Heptanol; Enanthyl alcohol

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

Source: FEMA GRAS publications 1-33. 4 related FEMA records for this name — verify the exact substance for regulatory use.

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.

herb shown above Flavornet Cas, Flavornet Name, FlavorDB 2.0, Flavordb Odor Column 4 sources agree

chemical FlavorDB 2.0, Flavordb Odor Column 2 sources agree

pine, chemical FlavorDB 2.0, Flavordb Odor Column 2 sources agree

solvent FlavorDB 2.0, Flavordb Odor Column 2 sources agree

pine FlavorDB 2.0, Flavordb Odor Column 2 sources agree

woody, fresh 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

5 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

3.0 ppb

The reference measurement — smelled in water. OAV is computed against this.

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
3.0 ppb	water_odor	Leffingwell	—

In a food matrix

425 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
425 ppb	water (food: reference standard (water))	Literature corpus	—

Retronasal / in-mouth

31.0 ppb

Tasted rather than smelled — a different sense, not comparable.

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
31.0 ppb	water_flavor	Leffingwell	—

In air

100 ppb

Airborne detection — not comparable to a water threshold.

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
100 ppb	air (C2_cometto_muniz_abraham)	Cometto-Muñiz (PMC)	—

Other matrix

20.0 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
20.0 ppb	wine (food: red wine (cabernet sauvignon))	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 (425.0 ppb, the engine's canonical value — see the 5 published values). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.

Food	Concentration (ppb)	OAV	Source
grape	250000.0	588 ⚡	PMID 22156419
pear	8800.0	20.7 ⚡	PMID 40276714
cocoa	7650.0	18.0 ⚡	Corpus paper
hazelnut	500.0	1.18	PMID 35310662
soybean	0.0	0.00	—

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 heptanol. 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 heptanol in it. Full concentrations are in the OAV table above.

24 cmpds

46 cmpds

106 cmpds

115 cmpds