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Butyric Acid Flavour Standard
“Butyric“, like Baby Vomit, rancid or Strong Cheese”
A Butyric Acid Flavour Standard for sensory training helps professional tasters recognise and measure the intensity of butyric character, a potent off-flavour commonly described as “rancid,” “baby vomit,” or “strong cheese.”
Butyric acid is an off-flavour caused by bacterial contamination in brewing, dairy, and food production, leading to undesirable sensory characteristics in beer and other beverages. The flavour threshold for butyric acid ranges between 1.5 – 15 mg/L, making early detection crucial for quality control.
Don’t let your product be affected by this off-flavour – use the FlavorActiV Butyric Flavour Standard today!
We ship globally – shipping costs may apply depending on your region
Minimum Order: £275
What is Butyric Acid?
Butyric acid is a potent off-flavour compound commonly associated with undesirable sensory characteristics in beer, dairy, and other food products. It is often described as having a “rancid,” “baby vomit,” or “strong cheese” aroma. This off-flavour is caused by bacterial contamination or lipid oxidation during production, making it a critical issue for brewers, food manufacturers, and quality control professionals.
The flavour threshold for butyric acid ranges between 1.5 – 15 mg/L, meaning even small amounts can significantly impact the sensory profile of a product.
What Causes Butyric Acid Flavour?
The distinct, unpleasant flavour of butyric acid arises from:
- Bacterial Contamination: Microbial activity during fermentation or spoilage in brewing, dairy, and food production.
- Lipid Oxidation: The breakdown of fats and oils, leading to rancid characteristics.
- Improper Storage: Poor storage conditions that promote microbial growth.
- Cheese Ripening: Natural processes in cheese production can also produce butyric acid.
These factors make butyric acid a common issue in beer, dairy products, and other beverages, requiring early detection to maintain product quality.
Using the Butyric Acid Flavour Standard for Sensory Training
The FlavorActiV Butyric Acid Flavour Standard is a professional tool designed to help tasters identify and measure the intensity of butyric acid in beverages and food products. By incorporating this standard into sensory training programs, professionals can:
- Detect off-flavours early in the production process.
- Maintain product consistency and quality.
- Train sensory panels to recognise and quantify butyric acid intensity.
This flavour standard is recommended by leading organisations such as the American Society of Brewing Chemists (ASBC) and the European Brewing Chemists (EBC), ensuring it meets global quality standards.
How to Recognise Butyric Acid Flavour: Sensory Terms
When identifying butyric acid, tasters often describe it using the following sensory terms:
- Rancid
- Baby vomit/sick
- Putrid
- Strong cheese
- Rancid cheese
The FlavorActiV Sensory Icon for butyric acid is a crying baby, symbolising its distinct and unpleasant aroma.
What are the Professional Applications of the Butyric Acid Flavour Standard
The Butyric Acid Flavour Standard is an essential tool for professionals in:
- Brewing: Detecting bacterial contamination and ensuring beer quality.
- Dairy Production: Identifying spoilage or off-flavours in milk, cheese, and other dairy products.
- Food Manufacturing: Maintaining sensory consistency in processed foods.
- Sensory Training: Educating sensory panels to recognise and quantify butyric acid intensity.
By integrating this standard into quality assurance programs, businesses can prevent costly product recalls and maintain consumer trust.
Other Information
Beer Flavour Wheel Number: 0614
Flavour levels: 0.5 – 15 mg / l
The Butyric Acid GMP Flavour Standard is strongly dependent on the pH of the product in which it is placed. The lower the pH, the stronger the flavour.
Recommended flavour standard / sensory reference standard of: the American Society of Brewing Chemists (ASBC) and the European Brewing Chemists (EBC)
FlavorActiV GMP Flavour Standards
Only Pharmaceutical Quality GMP Flavour Standards provide sufficient quality for professional sensory panels to train and validate with.
We produce encapsulated GMP (Pharmaceutical Good Manufacturing Practice) Flavour Standards that are safe to both smell and drink. The compounds within our capsules impart the aroma, taste and mouthfeel of a specific defect or positive flavour into a beverage for the purposes of taster training, calibration and quality control.
Our individual flavour GMP Flavour Standards are sold by flavour, each flavour pack contains 5 capsules, each separately blister packaged. Our sensory kits contain a mixture of flavours, each separately blister packaged, read the product description for flavour details.
We ship globally, and have over 20 years of experience at it. Our GMP Pharmaceutical Flavour Standards are produced to the highest standards, and as such, their shelf-life is strong and their quality consistent.
FlavorActiV’s flavour centre is the world’s only pharmaceutically run facility dedicated to the production of flavour reference standards. The Flavour Centre is a state-of-the-art facility housed within the campus of world-renowned Quay Pharma near Liverpool in the U.K.
The Flavour Centre was designed by FlavorActiV from the ground up at the direct request of global customers as they looked to move away from inferior food grade ‘certified flavour standards’ to GMP Pharma, a standard that ensures safe, stable, traceable, consistent and long shelf-life products.
All FlavorActiV’s industry-leading encapsulated flavour standards are manufactured following GMP at our Flavour Centre. All aspects of manufacture are overseen by Quay Pharma who are audited by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.K. Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory agency (MHRA). We also welcome customer audits.
Only FlavorActiV GMP flavour standard capsules bear our mark of authenticity.
We brand each of our capsules so that our customers know they’re getting the Pharmaceutical GMP Quality that only FlavorActiV provide.
Industry leading packaging and shelf-life
FlavorActiV flavour standards are blister packaged, which extends shelf-life and protects capsules from potential contamination. The average shelf-life of FlavorActiV flavour standards is 18 months to 4 years, depending on the flavour compounds.
We will never ship in pots or plastic packaging, here’s why…
Blister packaging protects capsules from the environment until they are ready for use. Blister packaging greatly reduces the amount of headspace for possible flavour escape. As each capsule individually blister packaged, making use of one capsule still leaves all others protected. FlavorActiV Flavour Standard packaging is 100% recyclable, as opposed to polypropylene which is not widely recycled.
Pots are semi-porous, they allow molecules to pass through and flavour to be lost, their significant headspace also adds to substantial flavour escape as a gas, even when using just one capsule all those remaining in the pot are exposed.
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