octanoic acid
sour acid Key food odorantFound in 571 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.
Look up another compound — search by name, CAS number, PubChem CID, or FEMA #.
- Formula
- C8H16O2
- Molecular weight
- 144.21 g/mol
- PubChem CID
- 379 — full record on PubChem
Key food odorant (individualist)
Dunkel et al. 2014Identified 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: fatty, waxy.
Properties
- Odor description
- sweaty, cheesy, waxy
- Odor threshold — orthonasal, in clean water
- 3000 ppb 2 published values · see all 24 with sources
- Volatility
- high
- CAS number
- 124-07-2
- Retention index
- 1190
FEMA GRAS — Generally Recognized As Safe for flavoring use
- FEMA number
- 2799
- GRAS publication
- GRAS 3
- FEMA primary name
- OCTANOIC ACID
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
24 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
3000 ppbThe reference measurement — smelled in water. OAV is computed against this.
| Threshold | Matrix | Source | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3000 ppb | water_odor | Leffingwell | — |
| 3000 ppb SIDA | water | Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies | — |
In a food matrix
4.9 ppb – 3000 ppbMeasured in a real food, where the matrix shifts detection — not a clean-water value.
| Threshold | Matrix | Source | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.013 ppb | water (food: beer) | Literature corpus | 17499755, 33889833 |
| Flagged: 7649× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden. | |||
| 0.300 ppb | water (food: apple) | Literature corpus | 11302210 |
| Flagged: 342× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden. | |||
| 0.380 ppb SIDA | water (food: strawberry) | Literature corpus | 32625638, 10552650, 11272845 +46 |
| Flagged: 270× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden. | |||
| 4.9 ppb | water (food: tea) | Literature corpus | 29086878, 37188725, 41551788 |
| 6.6 ppb SIDA | water (food: unknown) | Literature corpus | 32625638, 11272845, 19753606 +18 |
| 9.8 ppb | water (food: milk) | Literature corpus | 10552650, 39479676 |
| 16.4 ppb | water (food: pork) | Literature corpus | 39085314 |
| 22.3 ppb | water (food: baijiu) | Literature corpus | 35513386 |
| 55.0 ppb | water (food: wine) | Literature corpus | 25939071, 32657431, 35011467 +1 |
| 73.0 ppb SIDA | water (food: garlic) | Literature corpus | 32625638, 10552650, 11272845 +46 |
| 132 ppb SIDA | water (food: chocolate) | Literature corpus | 32625638, 17898464 |
| 190 ppb SIDA | water (food: goat milk) | Literature corpus | 32625638, 10552650, 11272845 +46 |
| 595 ppb | water (food: lime) | Literature corpus | 15826061, 24789719, 30972045 |
| 1089 ppb SIDA | water (food: peanut) | Literature corpus | 32625638, 10552650, 11272845 +46 |
| 1176 ppb | water (food: ginger) | Literature corpus | 37936928 |
| 1182 ppb | water (food: bread) | Literature corpus | 41613919 |
| 1622 ppb | water (food: beef) | Literature corpus | 37701748, 38974721 |
| 1666 ppb | water (food: rice) | Literature corpus | 26973621, 29877224, 38846797 +1 |
| 2083 ppb | water (food: olive oil) | Literature corpus | 28671107 |
| 3000 ppb SIDA | water (food: reference standard (water)) | Literature corpus | 32625638, 10552650, 11272845 +46 |
Retronasal / in-mouth
5300 ppbTasted rather than smelled — a different sense, not comparable.
| Threshold | Matrix | Source | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5300 ppb | water_flavor | Leffingwell | — |
| 5300 ppb SIDA | water_retronasal | Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies | — |
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 (161.0 ppb, the engine's canonical value — see the 24 published values). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.
| Food | Concentration (ppb) | OAV | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| grape | 62000.0 | 385 ⚡ | PMID 34623142 |
| cheese | 25033.5 | 155 ⚡ | Corpus paper |
| milk | 4535.5 | 28.2 ⚡ | Corpus paper |
| white wine | 2660.0 | 16.5 ⚡ | DOI |
| bread | 1180.0 | 7.33 | Corpus paper |
| baijiu | 1173.0 | 7.29 | Corpus paper |
| pork | 718.6 | 4.46 | PMID 41315583 |
| rice | 615.1 | 3.82 | Corpus paper |
| blueberry | 580.0 | 3.60 | DOI |
| beer | 496.4 | 3.08 | Corpus paper |
| wine | 160.0 | 0.99 | PMID 27405438 |
| garlic | 147.0 | 0.91 | Corpus paper |
| red wine | 100.0 | 0.62 | Corpus paper |
| beef | 47.0 | 0.29 | Corpus paper |
| ginger | 25.2 | 0.16 | — |
| lime | 15.0 | 0.09 | — |
| tea | 4.4 | 0.03 | — |
| olive oil | 3.1 | 0.02 | — |
| chocolate | 2.3 | 0.01 | — |
| apple | 0.4 | 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 shareEvery ingredient known to contain octanoic 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 octanoic acid in it. Full concentrations are in the OAV table above.
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