Malt is a cereal with 125 known flavor compounds. The most distinctive molecule is nonenal. It pairs most strongly with vinegar, sharing 26 flavor compounds. Malt appears in 917 recipes, most commonly in european cuisine.
Compounds ranked by rarity — the higher the score, the more distinctive to this ingredient.
Of the ~226 molecules that drive perceived food aroma (Dunkel et al. 2014), Malt's inventory contains 33. Most of the other 92 compounds are below detection threshold.
+ 21 more — showing top 12 by class and threshold.
Generalist = appears in >25% of foods (Maillard / fermentation products). Individualist = appears in <5% of foods (carries signature notes). Threshold values are in clean water — the actual perception threshold in a food matrix can differ substantially.
How Malt's 125 known compounds break down by aroma category. Percentages are of compounds with a known label.
78 of 125 are distinctive to malt — they appear in under 10% of foods. The remainder are the background most foods share.
Ordered by measured impact in malt — concentration against odour threshold where both are published, then by how distinctive the molecule is across the graph. Molecules measured here but not established as odorants sit below those that are.
Ranked by median concentration across published studies. Only 1 of Malt's 125 compounds have a measured concentration in the literature — the rest are confirmed present but not yet quantified. Bars are log-scaled.
Ranked by how often cooks actually use them together, across 453,403 recipes — the familiar answer first. Each pairing still carries its molecular score and shared-compound count; only the ORDER differs. Counts cover every characterised molecule the two ingredients have in common, not only the aroma-active ones, so they can exceed an ingredient’s aroma-compound count. For the chemistry-first view — where the surprising pairings live — see the molecular network below, the side-by-side comparison, or the Pairing Tool.
Malt and its 10 closest compound-sharing relatives. Spoke thickness = shared compounds; circle size = that ingredient's own compound count. Drag to rearrange, scroll to zoom, click to open.
Compare Malt side-by-side
Drawn from PubMed + Europe PMC + food-science journals. Click any title to read the full abstract on the original source.
Background/Objectives: This study reports pilot-scale production of gluten-free rice malt extract powder from Thai Chainat 1 rice as a sustainable alternative to barley malt extrac... Read abstract →
The oral microbiome is second only to its intestinal counterpart in diversity and abundance, but its effects on taste cells remains largely unexplored. Using single-cell RNASeq, we... Read abstract →
γ-aminobutyric-acid (GABA) is a mental health-supporting substance that helps release anxiety and depression and improves memory. Lactiplantibacillus plantarum SKKL1, a GABA-produc... Read abstract →
Lactobacillus helveticus is a well characterized lactobacillus for dairy fermentations that is also found in malt whisky fermentations. The two environments contain considerable di... Read abstract →
Extensively malted cereals counteract enterotoxic diarrhea and inflammatory bowel diseases. This effect depends on a protein called antisecretory factor (AF), which is secreted int... Read abstract →
