1-butyl acetate

fruity ester Key food odorant

Found in 2 ingredients 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.

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

Properties

Odor description: fruity, banana, pear, solvent
Odor threshold — orthonasal, in clean water: 66.0 ppb 1 published value · see all 9 with sources
CAS number: 123-86-4

Regulatory · United States

FEMA GRAS — Generally Recognized As Safe for flavoring use

? Partial match

FEMA number: 4324
GRAS publication: GRAS 23
FEMA primary name: 3-Mercapto-3-methyl-1-butyl acetate

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	0.5	3
beverages (alcoholic)	0.2	1
beverages (nonalcoholic)	0.2	1
breakfast cereal	0.2	2
cheese	0.5	2
chewing gum	0.2	2
condiments/ relishes	0.2	1
confectionery frostings	0.2	1
frozen dairy	0.1	1
fruit ices	0.1	1
gelatins/ puddings	0.2	1
hard candy	0.5	2
imitation dairy	0.2	1
instant coffee/tea	0.2	1
jams/jellies	0.2	1
milk products	0.1	1
nut products	0.2	1
processed fruits	0.1	1
seasonings/ flavors	10	1000
snack foods	0.2	1
soft candy	0.2	1
sweet sauces	0.2	1

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

How this molecule is described

Sources disagree about odour more often than they disagree about chemistry. Rather than show one answer, here is every description on file with how many ingredient records carry it.

Descriptions on file

Ordered by how many independent descriptor streams give each wording, then by how often it appears. The bar is still replication — one source copied onto many ingredients scores high there — so the two can disagree.

dandelion, fruit FlavorDB 2.0

favorable FlavorDB 2.0

fruity, banana, pear, solvent shown above Llm Adjudicated

—

Bars are the share of ingredient records carrying each description. High agreement means the sources replicate each other — not necessarily that they are right.

Published thresholds

9 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

66.0 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
66.0 ppb	water_odor	Leffingwell	—

In a food matrix

2.1 ppb – 105 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.180 ppb	water (food: lime)	Literature corpus	17944532
Flagged: 121× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden.
2.1 ppb	water (food: rum)	Literature corpus	37284321
9.5 ppb	water (food: unknown)	Literature corpus	33995294, 36474235
34.0 ppb	water (food: tea)	Literature corpus	31861730, 32796601, 35956905 +1
66.0 ppb	water (food: reference standard (water))	Literature corpus	17944532, 31861730, 32796601 +5
105 ppb	water (food: melon)	Literature corpus	17944532, 31861730, 32796601 +5

In air

0.654 ppb – 16.0 ppb

Airborne detection — not comparable to a water threshold.

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.654 ppb	air (food: reference standard (air))	Literature corpus	17944532, 31861730, 32796601 +5
16.0 ppb	air	Nagata 2003	—

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.

Found in

Measured impact first, then profile share

Every ingredient known to contain 1-butyl acetate. 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 1-butyl acetate in it.

434 cmpds

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