stearic acid
sour acidFound in 164 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.
Look up another compound — search by name, CAS number, PubChem CID, or FEMA #.
- Formula
- C18H36O2
- Molecular weight
- 284.5 g/mol
- PubChem CID
- 5281 — full record on PubChem
Properties
- Odor description
- odorless mild fatty waxy
- Odor threshold — orthonasal, in clean water
- 20000 ppb 1 published value · see all 9 with sources
- Volatility
- low
- CAS number
- 57-11-4
- Retention index
- 2186
FEMA GRAS — Generally Recognized As Safe for flavoring use
- FEMA number
- 3035
- GRAS publication
- GRAS 3
- FEMA primary name
- STEARIC 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
9 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
20000 ppbThe reference measurement — smelled in water. OAV is computed against this.
| Threshold | Matrix | Source | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20000 ppb | water_odor | Leffingwell | — |
In a food matrix
0.540 ppb – 33.2 ppbMeasured in a real food, where the matrix shifts detection — not a clean-water value.
| Threshold | Matrix | Source | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.060 ppb | water (food: strawberry) | Literature corpus | 17912357, 24273870, 33431766 +13 |
| Flagged: 107× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden. | |||
| 0.540 ppb | water (food: honey) | Literature corpus | 17912357 |
| 0.992 ppb | water (food: milk) | Literature corpus | 17912357, 24273870, 33431766 +13 |
| 1.4 ppb | water (food: tea) | Literature corpus | 34179519, 39242718 |
| 11.4 ppb | water (food: unknown) | Literature corpus | 24273870, 33431766, 33435616 +9 |
| 26.6 ppb | water (food: pork) | Literature corpus | 17912357, 24273870, 33431766 +13 |
| 33.2 ppb | water (food: mushroom) | Literature corpus | 17912357, 24273870, 33431766 +13 |
| 4135 ppb | water (food: peanut) | Literature corpus | 39512543 |
| Flagged: 645× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden. | |||
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 (18.992 ppb, the engine's canonical value — see the 9 published values). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.
| Food | Concentration (ppb) | OAV | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| cabbage | 500000.0 | 26327 ⚡ | PMID 38259922 |
| lard | 67390.0 | 3548 ⚡ | Corpus paper |
| honey | 2249.0 | 118 ⚡ | Corpus paper |
| mushroom | 17.7 | 0.93 | — |
| strawberry | 10.1 | 0.53 | — |
| peanut | 8.1 | 0.43 | — |
| tea | 3.1 | 0.16 | — |
| milk | 0.1 | 0.01 | — |
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 stearic 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 stearic acid in it. Full concentrations are in the OAV table above.
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