ethanal

green aldehyde Key food odorant

Found in 1 ingredient across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

Key food odorant (generalist)

Dunkel et al. 2014

Identified in the meta-analysis of 227 food samples as one of 16 generalist odorants — appears in >25% of foods, typically from generic Maillard, lipid-oxidation, or fermentation pathways. Characteristic odor: fresh, fruity.
Detection threshold in water: 25 ppb — matrix effects can shift this substantially in a real food.

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

Properties

Odor threshold: 16.0 ppb

Regulatory · United States

FEMA GRAS — Generally Recognized As Safe for flavoring use

? Partial match

FEMA number: 3389
GRAS publication: GRAS 6
FEMA primary name: 2,6,6-TRIMETHYLCYCLOHEXA-1,3,-DIENYL METHANAL

Use-level matrix not extracted for this substance — check the source publication for current ppm guidance.

Source: FEMA GRAS publications 1-33.

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	2.586e+04 µg/L air	0.0027–1e+06	8	5	no (7.3 decades)
ethanol solution	1.02e+04 ppb	1.2e+03–4.38e+04	6	4	yes
food matrix	605 ppb	0.2–9.9e+06	28	21	no (5.2 decades)
model wine or beer	500 ppb	500–500	1	1	one paper
not applicable	500 ppb	500–500	1	1	one paper
oil	0.22 ppb	0.22–0.22	1	1	one paper
unstated	500 ppb	0.2–2.5e+08	35	32	no (4.6 decades)
water	16 ppb	2.7–154	17	16	yes

Found in

Measured impact first, then profile share

Every ingredient known to contain ethanal. 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 ethanal in it.

lamb

meat

265 cmpds

Into the chemistry?

Get a molecule-level pairing breakdown each week — which ingredients share a compound, and why it matters at the table. Free, no spam.

Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.

Try the pairing tools to see which ingredient combinations rely on ethanal, or compare two ingredients side-by-side.