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3-mercapto-2-methylpentan-1-ol

savory thiol

Found in 3 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

Properties

Odor description
meaty, broth, onion, leek, sweaty
Odor threshold — in a food matrix
0.002 ppb 2 published values · see all 2 with sources
CAS number
227456-27-1
Regulatory · United States

FEMA GRAS — Generally Recognized As Safe for flavoring use

~ Likely match
FEMA number
3996
GRAS publication
GRAS 20
FEMA primary name
3-MERCAPTO-2-METHYLPENTAN-1-OL (RACEMIC)

Use-level matrix not extracted for this substance — check the source publication for current ppm guidance.

Source: FEMA GRAS publications 1-33.

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.

gravy-like, onion FlavorDB 2.0
1
onion, gravy-like FlavorDB 2.0
1
pleasant meat broth, sweaty, onion, leek-like FlavorDB 2.0
1
meaty, broth, onion, leek, sweaty shown above Llm Adjudicated
—
onion Flavordb Odor Column
—

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

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 a food matrix

0.002 ppb

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

Threshold Matrix Source Paper
0.002 ppb water (food: beef vegetable gravy) Literature corpus —
0.002 ppb water (food: pork vegetable gravy) Literature corpus —

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 3-mercapto-2-methylpentan-1-ol. 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 3-mercapto-2-methylpentan-1-ol in it.

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