pentanol
floral alcoholFound in 12 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.
“pentanol” does not identify one molecule. May be 1-, 2- or 3-pentanol. Our own sources disagree: flavordb files this name under CAS 584-02-1 (3-pentanol) while the engine's enrichment says 71-41-0 (1-pentanol). The alias map had been asserting 3-pentanol.
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
- fruit
- Odor threshold — orthonasal, in clean water
- 4000 ppb 1 published value · see all 6 with sources
- CAS number
- 71-41-0
- Retention index
- 1247
FEMA GRAS — Generally Recognized As Safe for flavoring use
- FEMA number
- 4792
- GRAS publication
- GRAS 27
- CAS number
- 548740-99-4
- FEMA primary name
- (±)-3-Mercapto-1-pentanol
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) |
|---|---|---|
| baked goods | 2 | 10 |
| beverages, non-alcoholic | 1 | 6 |
| breakfast cereals | 1 | 8 |
| chewing gum | 3 | 10 |
| frozen dairy | 1 | 8 |
| gravies | 1 | 8 |
| instant coffee and tea | 1 | 8 |
| jams and jellies | 1 | 8 |
| milk products | 1 | 8 |
| snack foods | 1 | 6 |
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.
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
6 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
4000 ppbThe reference measurement — smelled in water. OAV is computed against this.
| Threshold | Matrix | Source | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4000 ppb | water_odor | Leffingwell | — |
In a food matrix
13.9 ppb – 4000 ppbMeasured in a real food, where the matrix shifts detection — not a clean-water value.
| Threshold | Matrix | Source | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 13.9 ppb | water (food: unknown) | Literature corpus | — |
| 234 ppb | water (food: peanut) | Literature corpus | — |
| 1272 ppb | water (food: beer) | Literature corpus | — |
| 4000 ppb | water (food: reference standard (water)) | Literature corpus | — |
In air
1288 ppbAirborne detection — not comparable to a water threshold.
| Threshold | Matrix | Source | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1288 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.
Where you'd actually smell it
Odor Activity Value = measured concentration ÷ odor threshold (1272.0 ppb, the engine's canonical value — see the 6 published values). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.
| Food | Concentration (ppb) | OAV | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| soybean | 500000.0 | 393 ⚡ | DOI |
| milk powder | 500000.0 | 393 ⚡ | DOI |
| red wine | 406000.0 | 319 ⚡ | Corpus paper |
| pasta | 385000.0 | 303 ⚡ | PMID 22223305 |
| mead | 162000.0 | 127 ⚡ | DOI |
| grape | 150275.0 | 118 ⚡ | DOI |
| quinoa | 100000.0 | 78.6 ⚡ | PMID 29593679 |
| brie | 100000.0 | 78.6 ⚡ | PMID 31554071 |
| lime | 100003.4 | 78.6 ⚡ | PMID 41267287 |
| white wine | 59800.0 | 47.0 ⚡ | DOI |
| loquat | 40660.0 | 32.0 ⚡ | DOI |
| olive oil | 40000.0 | 31.4 ⚡ | Corpus paper |
| wine | 23000.0 | 18.1 ⚡ | PMID 30704594 |
| whey | 20000.0 | 15.7 ⚡ | DOI |
| borage | 10000.0 | 7.86 | — |
| olive | 6300.0 | 4.95 | DOI |
| apple | 6000.0 | 4.72 | — |
| honey | 5000.0 | 3.93 | — |
| blueberry | 3300.0 | 2.59 | — |
| bread | 3013.0 | 2.37 | — |
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 pentanol. 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 pentanol in it. Full concentrations are in the OAV table above.
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