n-hexanol

floral alcohol Key food odorant

Found in 7 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

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: green, grassy.

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

Properties

Odor description: green, grassy, fruity, resinous
Odor threshold — orthonasal, in clean water: 830 ppb – 5600 ppb median 2500 ppb · 3 published values · see all 20 with sources
CAS number: 111-27-3
Retention index: 869

Regulatory · United States

FEMA GRAS — Generally Recognized As Safe for flavoring use

✓ Exact match

FEMA number: None
GRAS publication: GRAS 1
FEMA primary name: n-Hexanol

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.

significant effects on flavor formation FlavorDB 2.0, Flavordb Odor Column 2 sources agree

grass FlavorDB 2.0

green, grassy, fruity, resinous shown above Llm Adjudicated

—

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

20 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

830 ppb – 5600 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
830 ppb SIDA	water	Rychlik 1998 · 4 studies	—
2500 ppb	water_odor	Leffingwell	—
5600 ppb SIDA	water	Dunkel 2014	—

In a food matrix

3.1 ppb – 4664 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.230 ppb	water (food: rice)	Literature corpus	41675126
Flagged: 870× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden.
1.0 ppb	water (food: apple)	Literature corpus	17898464, 24441709, 24594176 +8
Flagged: 200× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden.
1.1 ppb	water (food: unknown)	Literature corpus	24441709, 30687239, 40366211
Flagged: 182× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden.
3.1 ppb	water (food: chocolate)	Literature corpus	17898464
13.0 ppb	water (food: fish)	Literature corpus	24594176, 36144849, 37003052
18.1 ppb	water (food: grape)	Literature corpus	17898464, 24441709, 24594176 +8
200 ppb	water (food: goat milk)	Literature corpus	17898464, 24441709, 24594176 +8
336 ppb	water (food: peanut)	Literature corpus	17898464, 24441709, 24594176 +8
373 ppb	water (food: wine)	Literature corpus	17898464, 24441709, 24594176 +8
872 ppb	water (food: bread)	Literature corpus	17898464, 24441709, 24594176 +8
1357 ppb	water (food: olive oil)	Literature corpus	28671107
2500 ppb	water (food: reference standard (water))	Literature corpus	17898464, 24441709, 24594176 +8
4664 ppb	water (food: lime)	Literature corpus	41048468

Retronasal / in-mouth

200 ppb – 200000 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
200 ppb SIDA	water_retronasal	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—
200000 ppb SIDA	beer_retronasal	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—

In air

6.0 ppb – 8.1 ppb

Airborne detection — not comparable to a water threshold.

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
6.0 ppb	air	Nagata 2003	—
8.1 ppb	air (C2_cometto_muniz_abraham)	Cometto-Muñiz (PMC)	—

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 share

Every ingredient known to contain n-hexanol. 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 n-hexanol in it.

90 cmpds

99 cmpds

144 cmpds

225 cmpds