3-methylbutanoate

Key food odorant

Found in 3 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. Characteristic odor: fruity, apple.

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

Properties

Odor description: fruity, ester, sweet, apple
Odor threshold — orthonasal, in clean water: 28.0 ppb – 68.0 ppb median 48.0 ppb · 2 published values · see all 8 with sources
CAS number: 623-42-7

Regulatory · United States

FEMA GRAS — Generally Recognized As Safe for flavoring use

? Partial match

FEMA number: 3500
GRAS publication: GRAS 10
FEMA primary name: HEXYL 3-METHYLBUTANOATE

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.

chemical FlavorDB 2.0, Flavordb Odor Column 2 sources agree

solvent FlavorDB 2.0, Flavordb Odor Column 2 sources agree

pine FlavorDB 2.0, Flavordb Odor Column 2 sources agree

fruity, ester, sweet, apple 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

8 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

28.0 ppb – 68.0 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
28.0 ppb SIDA	water	Rychlik 1998 · 3 studies	—
68.0 ppb	water_odor	Leffingwell	—

In a food matrix

2.3 ppb – 209 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
2.3 ppb	water (food: strawberry)	Literature corpus	33995294, 34718544, 37515910
3.7 ppb	water (food: orange)	Literature corpus	37515910
4.5 ppb	water (food: unknown)	Literature corpus	33995294, 34718544
209 ppb	water (food: peanut)	Literature corpus	33995294, 34718544, 37515910

In air

0.056 ppb – 7.1 ppb

Airborne detection — not comparable to a water threshold.

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.056 ppb	air (food: reference standard (air))	Literature corpus	33995294, 34718544, 37515910
7.1 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.

Where you'd actually smell it

Odor Activity Value = measured concentration ÷ odor threshold (16.235 ppb, the engine's canonical value — see the 8 published values). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.

Food	Concentration (ppb)	OAV	Source
whisky	123.0	7.58	Corpus paper

Concentrations from PubMed Central Open Access papers (free literature corpus, MIT-style licensed). Copper = OAV ≥ 10 (strongly perceptible). Green = OAV ≥ 1 (perceptible).

Found in

Measured impact first, then profile share

Every ingredient known to contain 3-methylbutanoate. 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-methylbutanoate in it. Full concentrations are in the OAV table above.

201 cmpds

407 cmpds

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