Skip to main content

butyl propionate

fruity ester

Found in 8 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

2D Lewis structure of butyl propionate
2D Lewis Structure
Formula
C7H14O2
Molecular weight
130.18 g/mol
PubChem CID
11529 — full record on PubChem

Properties

Odor description
banana, earthy, rose, sweet, weak
Odor threshold — orthonasal, in clean water
112 ppb 1 published value · see all 2 with sources
Volatility
high
CAS number
590-01-2
Retention index
908
Regulatory · United States

FEMA GRAS — Generally Recognized As Safe for flavoring use

✓ Exact match
FEMA number
2211
GRAS publication
GRAS 3
FEMA primary name
BUTYL PROPIONATE

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.

Also filed as
butyl propanoate

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

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.

banana, earthy, rose, sweet, weak shown above FlavorDB 2.0
5
earthy sweet weak rose 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.

Orthonasal, in clean water

112 ppb

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

Threshold Matrix Source Paper
112 ppb water_odor Leffingwell —

In air

36.0 ppb

Airborne detection — not comparable to a water threshold.

Threshold Matrix Source Paper
36.0 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 butyl propionate. 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 propionate in it.

Into the chemistry?

Get a molecule-level pairing breakdown each week — which ingredients share a compound, and why it matters at the table. Free, no spam.

Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.

Try the pairing tools to see which ingredient combinations rely on butyl propionate, or compare two ingredients side-by-side.