butyl acetate

fruity ester Key food odorant

Found in 370 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

2D Lewis Structure

Formula: C6H12O2
Molecular weight: 116.16 g/mol
PubChem CID: 31272 — full record on PubChem

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: pear
Odor threshold — orthonasal, in clean water: 66.0 ppb 1 published value · see all 9 with sources
Volatility: high
CAS number: 123-86-4
Retention index: 807

Regulatory · United States

FEMA GRAS — Generally Recognized As Safe for flavoring use

✓ Exact match

FEMA number: 2174
GRAS publication: GRAS 3
FEMA primary name: BUTYL ACETATE

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

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.

pear shown above Flavornet Cas, Flavornet Name, FlavorDB 2.0, Flavordb Odor Column 4 sources agree

sharp FlavorDB 2.0, Flavordb Odor Column 2 sources agree

Sweet, ripe banana, tutti frutti, tropical and candy-like with green nuances FlavorDB 2.0

335

banana, ethereal, fruity, pear, solvent FlavorDB 2.0

apple, pear, fatty, pine, fermented FlavorDB 2.0

fruity FlavorDB 2.0

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.

Where you'd actually smell it

Odor Activity Value = measured concentration ÷ odor threshold (21.75 ppb, the engine's canonical value — see the 9 published values). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.

Food	Concentration (ppb)	OAV	Source
chocolate	50000.0	2299 ⚡	Corpus paper
royal gala apple	30674.0	1410 ⚡	Corpus paper
milk	10000.0	460 ⚡	PMID 32733419
seaweed	10000.0	460 ⚡	PMID 40594114
pear	5554.9	255 ⚡	PMID 40276714
grape	1000.0	46.0 ⚡	PMID 11308345
tea	100.0	4.60	—
apple	10.0	0.46	PMID 32650562
rum	4.6	0.21	—
melon	0.6	0.03	—
lime	0.3	0.01	—

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 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 butyl acetate in it. Full concentrations are in the OAV table above.

milk

measured · OAV 459.77

363 cmpds

seaweed

measured · OAV 459.77

128 cmpds

364 cmpds

578 cmpds