n-caprylic acid

dairy acid 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 (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. Characteristic odor: fatty, waxy.

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

Properties

Odor threshold — orthonasal, in clean water: 3000 ppb 2 published values · see all 6 with sources
CAS number: 124-07-2

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.

Published thresholds

6 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.

Orthonasal, in clean water

3000 ppb

The reference measurement — smelled in water. OAV is computed against this.

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
3000 ppb	water_odor	Leffingwell	—
3000 ppb SIDA	water	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—

In a food matrix

190 ppb – 3000 ppb

Measured in a real food, where the matrix shifts detection — not a clean-water value.

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
190 ppb SIDA	water (food: goat milk)	Literature corpus	32625638, 10552650, 11272845 +46
3000 ppb SIDA	water (food: reference standard (water))	Literature corpus	32625638, 10552650, 11272845 +46

Retronasal / in-mouth

5300 ppb

Tasted rather than smelled — a different sense, not comparable.

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
5300 ppb	water_flavor	Leffingwell	—
5300 ppb SIDA	water_retronasal	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—

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	1405 µg/L air	0.0051–1.9e+04	9	6	no (6.0 decades)
ethanol solution	1600 ppb	500–2.7e+03	8	8	yes
food matrix	500 ppb	0.1–2.7e+06	83	74	yes
model wine or beer	500 ppb	500–1e+04	5	5	yes
not applicable	500 ppb	500–500	1	1	one paper
oil	1536 ppb	72.4–3e+03	2	2	yes
unstated	500 ppb	0.01–3e+07	149	135	yes
water	910 ppb	0.0051–3e+04	30	28	no (3.8 decades)

Found in

Measured impact first, then profile share

Every ingredient known to contain n-caprylic 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 n-caprylic acid in it.

cheese

dairy

295 cmpds

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