2,6-dimethylphenol

spicy phenol Key food odorant

Found in 10 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

2D Lewis Structure

Formula: C8H10O
Molecular weight: 122.16 g/mol
PubChem CID: 11335 — full record on PubChem

Key food odorant (individualist)

Dunkel et al. 2014

Identified 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.

Source: Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2014, 53, 7124–7143

Properties

Odor description: phenolic, medicinal, sweet, smoky
Odor threshold: 400.0 ppb (1 source, non-SIDA)
Volatility: high
CAS number: 576-26-1
Retention index: 1108

Not in FEMA GRAS publications 1-33. Of 3,367 listed flavoring substances, none match this compound name. May still be food-safe under other regulatory routes (FDA 21 CFR 172, EFSA, JECFA) — check femaflavor.org for the authoritative current list.

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.

coffee, medicinal, phenolic, rooty, sweet FlavorDB 2.0

sweet, medicinal, phenolic, rooty, coffee FlavorDB 2.0

roasty, solvent, sweet FlavorDB 2.0

phenolic, medicinal, sweet, smoky shown above Llm Adjudicated

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solvent Flavordb Odor Column

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sweet Flavordb Odor Column

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Bars are the share of ingredient records carrying each description. High agreement means the sources replicate each other — not necessarily that they are right.

Where you'd actually smell it

Odor Activity Value = measured concentration ÷ odor threshold (400.0 ppb). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.

Food	Concentration (ppb)	OAV	Source
veal	1.2	0.00	—

Concentrations from PubMed Central Open Access papers (free literature corpus, MIT-style licensed). Copper = OAV ≥ 10 (strongly perceptible). Green = OAV ≥ 1 (perceptible).

Thresholds in published tables

Numbers printed in open-access papers, grouped by the medium the table states. Median and full range of the values; “agree” means two or more papers whose middle 80% of values sit within 100×. Not reviewed.

Medium	Median	Range	Values	Papers	Papers agree?
air	0.0002 µg/L air	0.0002–0.0002	1	1	one paper
food matrix	114.9 ppb	0.0503–3.28e+03	3	2	no (4.8 decades)
unstated	400 ppb	400–400	1	1	one paper
water	200 ppb	14.2–400	3	3	yes

Found in

Measured impact first, then profile share

Every ingredient known to contain 2,6-dimethylphenol. 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 2,6-dimethylphenol in it. Full concentrations are in the OAV table above.

37 cmpds

66 cmpds

107 cmpds

130 cmpds