methanol

floral alcohol

Found in 405 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

2D Lewis Structure

Formula: CH4O
Molecular weight: 32.042 g/mol
PubChem CID: 887 — full record on PubChem

Properties

Odor description: alcoholic
Odor threshold — in air: 33000 ppb – 1513561 ppb median 773281 ppb · 2 published values · see all 2 with sources
Volatility: high
CAS number: 67-56-1
Retention index: 921

Regulatory · United States

FEMA GRAS — Generally Recognized As Safe for flavoring use

? Partial match

FEMA number: 4776
GRAS publication: GRAS 26
FEMA primary name: (1-Methyl-2-(1,2,2-trimethylbicyclo[3.1.0]hex-3-ylmethyl)cyclopropyl)methanol

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)
beverages, nonalcoholic	0.1	1
cheeses	0.1	1
chewing gum	1	10
confections and frostings	0.1	5
hard candy	1	10
instant coffee and tea	0.1	1
jams and jellies	0.1	1
milk products	0.1	1
seasonings and flavors	1	10
soft candy	0.1	1

Source: FEMA GRAS publications 1-33. 1 related FEMA record for this name — verify the exact substance for regulatory use.

Published thresholds

2 measured values from the literature. Grouped by what was actually measured — a threshold smelled in clean water, tasted in the mouth, or measured in a real food are three different quantities and are not pooled.

In air

33000 ppb – 1513561 ppb

Airborne detection — not comparable to a water threshold.

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
33000 ppb	air	Nagata 2003	—
1513561 ppb	air (C1_cometto_muniz_cain)	Cometto-Muñiz (PMC)	—

Only values we can attribute are listed. Where a compendium's licence does not permit public attribution its figures are omitted here, so every number on this page traces to a citable source.

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	1.095e+05 µg/L air	1e+05–2e+06	4	3	yes
food matrix	4.995e+05 ppb	1e+05–6.68e+05	4	4	yes
unstated	1.155e+05 ppb	100–1e+09	16	12	no (4.3 decades)

Found in

Measured impact first, then profile share

Every ingredient known to contain methanol. 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 methanol in it.

85 cmpds

90 cmpds

103 cmpds

✓1 103 cmpds