nootkatone

citrus terpenoid_other

Found in 12 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

2D Lewis Structure

Formula: C15H22O
Molecular weight: 218.33 g/mol
PubChem CID: 1268142 — full record on PubChem

Properties

Odor description: grapefruit, citrus, woody
Odor threshold — orthonasal, in clean water: 600 ppb – 800 ppb median 600 ppb · 3 published values · see all 4 with sources
Volatility: medium
CAS number: 4674-50-4
Retention index: 1812

Regulatory · United States

FEMA GRAS — Generally Recognized As Safe for flavoring use

~ Likely match

FEMA number: 4941
GRAS publication: GRAS 29
CAS number: 4674-50-4
FEMA primary name: Nootkatone complex

Reported use levels (ppm by food category)

Typical vs maximum reported addition levels in finished food. Use as a regulatory ceiling reference — verify against the current GRAS publication for your product category.

Food category	Typical (ppm)	Maximum (ppm)
beverages, alcoholic	10	50
beverages, non-alcoholic	10	50
chewing gum	10	50
confections and frostings	10	50

Source: FEMA GRAS publications 1-33. 1 related FEMA record 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.

grapefruit, citrus, woody shown above Flavornet Cas, Flavornet Name, Flavordb Odor Column 3 sources agree

—

citrus, grapefruit, orange, bitter 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

4 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

600 ppb – 800 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.900 ppb	water_odor	Leffingwell	—
Flagged: 667× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden.
600 ppb	water_odor	Leffingwell	—
800 ppb SIDA	water	Rychlik 1998 · 2 studies	—

In a food matrix

909 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
909 ppb	water (food: unknown)	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.

Found in

Measured impact first, then profile share

Every ingredient known to contain nootkatone. 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 nootkatone in it.

13 cmpds

28 cmpds

65 cmpds

66 cmpds