3-methylthiopropanol

floral alcohol Key food odorant

Found in 424 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: potato, cabbage.

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

Properties

Odor description: onion, potato, soup, sulfurous, sweet, vegetable
Odor threshold — in a food matrix: 36.0 ppb – 2100 ppb median 517 ppb · 4 published values · see all 6 with sources
CAS number: 505-10-2
Retention index: 1618

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.

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.

Also filed as

3-(methylthio) propanol 3-methyl thiopropanol 3-methylthio propanol

Same molecule, unified here — previously counted and displayed as separate compounds.

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.

In a food matrix

36.0 ppb – 2100 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
36.0 ppb	water (food: reference standard (water))	Literature corpus	26213023, 32657431, 35396186 +1
53.0 ppb	water (food: wine)	Literature corpus	32657431, 36496598
981 ppb	water (food: lime)	Literature corpus	26213023
2100 ppb	water (food: unknown)	Literature corpus	35396186

Retronasal / in-mouth

5.0 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
5.0 ppb SIDA	water_retronasal	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—

Other matrix

180 ppb

Measured in a non-aqueous medium (oil, starch, cellulose).

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
180 ppb	wine matrix (12% ethanol) (food: red wine)	Literature corpus	26213023, 32657431, 35396186 +1

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-methylthiopropanol. 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-methylthiopropanol in it.

83 cmpds

83 cmpds

84 cmpds

84 cmpds