l-malic acid

sour acid

Found in 411 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

2D Lewis Structure

Formula: C4H6O5
Molecular weight: 134.09 g/mol
PubChem CID: 222656 — full record on PubChem

Properties

Odor description: odorless
Odor threshold: 87000.0 ppb
Volatility: high
CAS number: 97-67-6
Retention index: 9

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.

Where you'd actually smell it

Odor Activity Value = measured concentration ÷ odor threshold (87000.0 ppb). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.

Food	Concentration (ppb)	OAV	Source
schisandra chinensis	36200.0	0.42	Corpus paper
wine	3440.0	0.04	Corpus paper
onion	49.6	0.00	—
rum	2.7	0.00	—

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 share

Every ingredient known to contain l-malic 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 l-malic acid in it. Full concentrations are in the OAV table above.

565 cmpds

103 cmpds

103 cmpds

104 cmpds