dimethyl trisulfide
sulfurous sulfide Key food odorantFound in 168 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.
Look up another compound — search by name, CAS number, PubChem CID, or FEMA #.
- Formula
- C2H6S3
- Molecular weight
- 126.3 g/mol
- PubChem CID
- 19310 — full record on PubChem
Key food odorant (intermediary)
Dunkel et al. 2014Identified in the meta-analysis of 227 food samples as one of 57 intermediary odorants — appears in 5–25% of foods.
Properties
- Odor description
- sulfurous, cabbage, savory, meaty, onion
- Odor threshold — orthonasal, in clean water
- 0.007 ppb – 0.010 ppb median 0.009 ppb · 2 published values · see all 21 with sources
- Volatility
- high
- CAS number
- 3658-80-8
- Retention index
- 971
FEMA GRAS — Generally Recognized As Safe for flavoring use
- FEMA number
- 3275
- GRAS publication
- GRAS 5
- FEMA primary name
- Dimethyl trisulfide
Use-level matrix not extracted for this substance — check the source publication for current ppm guidance.
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.
Same molecule, unified here — previously counted and displayed as separate compounds.
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.
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
21 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
0.007 ppb – 0.010 ppbThe reference measurement — smelled in water. OAV is computed against this.
| Threshold | Matrix | Source | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.007 ppb | water_odor | Leffingwell | — |
| 0.010 ppb SIDA | water | Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies | — |
In a food matrix
4.0 ppb – 96.0 ppbMeasured in a real food, where the matrix shifts detection — not a clean-water value.
| Threshold | Matrix | Source | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.010 ppb | water (food: reference standard (water)) | Literature corpus | 10552650, 28911457, 30166567 +7 |
| Flagged: 649× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden. | |||
| 0.010 ppb | water (food: smoked cooked loin (pork)) | Literature corpus | 10552650, 28911457, 30166567 +7 |
| Flagged: 643× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden. | |||
| 0.010 ppb | water (food: garlic, onion, vegetables, rapeseed) | Literature corpus | 10552650, 28911457, 30166567 +7 |
| Flagged: 643× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden. | |||
| 0.016 ppb | water (food: beef vegetable gravy) | Literature corpus | 10552650, 28911457, 30166567 +7 |
| Flagged: 402× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden. | |||
| 0.016 ppb | water (food: pork vegetable gravy) | Literature corpus | 10552650, 28911457, 30166567 +7 |
| Flagged: 402× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden. | |||
| 4.0 ppb | water (food: tomato) | Literature corpus | 10552650, 28911457, 30166567 +7 |
| 8.9 ppb | water (food: unknown) | Literature corpus | 30166567, 36866058 |
| 9.1 ppb | water (food: onion) | Literature corpus | 41174015 |
| 11.5 ppb | water (food: rice) | Literature corpus | 38846797, 40467248 |
| 26.0 ppb | water (food: milk) | Literature corpus | 10552650, 39479676 |
| 96.0 ppb | water (food: beef) | Literature corpus | 28911457 |
| 971 ppb | water (food: bread) | Literature corpus | 38519512 |
| Flagged: 151× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden. | |||
Retronasal / in-mouth
1.5 ppb – 4.2 ppbTasted rather than smelled — a different sense, not comparable.
| Threshold | Matrix | Source | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1.5 ppb SIDA | water_retronasal | Rychlik 1998 · 2 studies | — |
| 3.0 ppb | water_flavor | Leffingwell | — |
| 4.2 ppb SIDA | oil_retronasal | Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies | — |
Other matrix
0.086 ppb – 2.5 ppbMeasured in a non-aqueous medium (oil, starch, cellulose).
| Threshold | Matrix | Source | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.086 ppb SIDA | starch | Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies | — |
| 2.5 ppb SIDA | oil_orthonasal | Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies | — |
| 2.5 ppb | oil (sunflower oil) (food: cocoa beans) | Literature corpus | 10552650, 28911457, 30166567 +7 |
| 2.5 ppb | oil (sunflower oil) (food: cocoa powder) | Literature corpus | 10552650, 28911457, 30166567 +7 |
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 (1.988 ppb, the engine's canonical value — see the 21 published values). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.
| Food | Concentration (ppb) | OAV | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| banana | 6000.0 | 3018 ⚡ | — |
| cocoa | 3000.0 | 1509 ⚡ | — |
| bread | 959.0 | 482 ⚡ | Corpus paper |
| onion | 952.0 | 479 ⚡ | Corpus paper |
| flour | 500.0 | 252 ⚡ | DOI |
| pickled radish | 107.0 | 53.8 ⚡ | Corpus paper |
| milk | 23.5 | 11.8 ⚡ | Corpus paper |
| beef | 19.7 | 9.91 | Corpus paper |
| sesame oil | 17.0 | 8.55 | PMC10878863 |
| tomato | 8.9 | 4.50 | Corpus paper |
| rice | 0.6 | 0.30 | 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 shareEvery ingredient known to contain dimethyl trisulfide. 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 trisulfide in it. Full concentrations are in the OAV table above.
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