gallic acid
sour acidFound in 360 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.
Look up another compound — search by name, CAS number, PubChem CID, or FEMA #.
- Formula
- C7H6O5
- Molecular weight
- 170.12 g/mol
- PubChem CID
- 370 — full record on PubChem
Properties
- Odor threshold
- 328.0 ppb
- Volatility
- medium
- CAS number
- 149-91-7
- Retention index
- 3
FEMA GRAS — Generally Recognized As Safe for flavoring use
- FEMA number
- 4994
- GRAS publication
- GRAS 31
- CAS number
- 149-91-7
- FEMA primary name
- Gallic acid
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 | 250 | 640 |
| breakfast cereals | 200 | 400 |
| cheeses | 200 | 400 |
| condiments and relishes | 80 | 280 |
| confections and frostings | 100 | 250 |
| fats and oils | 70 | 300 |
| fish products | 100 | 400 |
| imitation dairy products | 150 | 400 |
| meat products | 150 | 280 |
| nut products | 200 | 720 |
| other grains | 200 | 400 |
| poultry products | 200 | 280 |
| snack foods | 240 | 500 |
| soft candy | 70 | 200 |
| sweet sauces | 80 | 280 |
Where you'd actually smell it
Odor Activity Value = measured concentration ÷ odor threshold (328.0 ppb). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.
| Food | Concentration (ppb) | OAV | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| black mulberry | 66200.0 | 202 ⚡ | Corpus paper |
| jelly bush honey | 2320.0 | 7.07 | Corpus paper |
| tomato | 8.4 | 0.03 | Corpus paper |
| beer | 3.6 | 0.01 | Corpus paper |
| tea | 1.5 | 0.00 | — |
| wine | 0.0 | 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? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| unstated | 4590 ppb | 4.59e+03–4.59e+03 | 1 | 1 | one paper |
Found in
Measured impact first, then profile shareEvery ingredient known to contain gallic 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 gallic acid in it. Full concentrations are in the OAV table above.
The inverted compound index is a Pro feature — reverse-search any of 5,139 flavor molecules across the full graph.
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 gallic acid, or compare two ingredients side-by-side.