dimethyl disulfide

sulfurous sulfide Key food odorant

Found in 172 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

2D Lewis Structure

Formula: C2H6S2
Molecular weight: 94.20 g/mol
PubChem CID: 12232 — 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: cabbage, garlic, putrid
Odor threshold — orthonasal, in clean water: 6.1 ppb 2 published values · see all 12 with sources
Volatility: high
CAS number: 624-92-0
Retention index: 746

Regulatory · United States

FEMA GRAS — Generally Recognized As Safe for flavoring use

✓ Exact match

FEMA number: 3536
GRAS publication: GRAS 11
FEMA primary name: DIMETHYL DISULFIDE

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.

Also filed as

dimethyldisulfide methyl disulfide

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.

cabbage, garlic, putrid shown above Flavornet Cas, Flavornet Name, Flavordb Odor Column 3 sources agree

—

cabbage, citrus, earthy, fatty, floral, fruity, green, herbaceous, meaty, nutty, onion, putrid, spicy, sulfurous, vegetable, wine_like, woody FlavorDB 2.0

102

sulfurous cabbage, malt, cream FlavorDB 2.0

cabbage-like FlavorDB 2.0

burnt, onion, butter, cheesy, sweaty FlavorDB 2.0

cooked 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

12 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

6.1 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
6.1 ppb	water_odor	Leffingwell	—
6.1 ppb SIDA	water	Rychlik 1998 · 2 studies	—

In a food matrix

0.500 ppb – 246 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.286 ppb	water (food: unknown)	Literature corpus	18974891, 22059567, 22416694 +7
Flagged: 145× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden.
0.500 ppb	water (food: onion)	Literature corpus	41174015
4.0 ppb	water (food: rice)	Literature corpus	38846797, 40467248
79.0 ppb	water (food: honey)	Literature corpus	18974891, 22059567, 22416694 +11
98.0 ppb	water (food: beef)	Literature corpus	28911457
246 ppb	water (food: tea)	Literature corpus	18974891, 22059567, 22416694 +11

Retronasal / in-mouth

15.0 ppb – 30.0 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
15.0 ppb	water_flavor	Leffingwell	—
30.0 ppb SIDA	water_retronasal	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—

In air

0.002 ppb – 2.2 ppb

Airborne detection — not comparable to a water threshold.

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.002 ppb	air (food: reference standard (air))	Literature corpus	18974891, 22059567, 22416694 +11
2.2 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 (6.08 ppb, the engine's canonical value — see the 12 published values). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.

Food	Concentration (ppb)	OAV	Source
flour	2000.0	329 ⚡	DOI
onion	736.0	121 ⚡	Corpus paper
honey	94.0	15.5 ⚡	Corpus paper
sesame oil	17.0	2.80	PMC10878863
beef	10.2	1.68	Corpus paper
white wine	3.0	0.49	DOI
tea	3.0	0.49	Corpus paper
rice	1.0	0.16	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 dimethyl disulfide. 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 dimethyl disulfide in it. Full concentrations are in the OAV table above.

onion

measured · OAV 121.05

369 cmpds

451 cmpds

312 cmpds

617 cmpds