ethanethiol

sulfurous thiol

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

Formula: C2H6S
Molecular weight: 62.14 g/mol
PubChem CID: 6343 — full record on PubChem

Properties

Odor description: sulfurous, garlic, rotten onion, gassy
Odor threshold — in a food matrix: 3.0 ppb – 172 ppb median 3.9 ppb · 4 published values · see all 5 with sources
Volatility: high
CAS number: 75-08-1

Regulatory · United States

FEMA GRAS — Generally Recognized As Safe for flavoring use

✓ Exact match

FEMA number: 4258
GRAS publication: GRAS 23
FEMA primary name: Ethanethiol

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.

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.

sulfurous, fruity FlavorDB 2.0

reductive aroma FlavorDB 2.0

rotten onion FlavorDB 2.0

fruity, sulfurous FlavorDB 2.0

sulfurous, garlic, rotten onion, gassy shown above Llm Adjudicated

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sulfur-cabbage Flavordb Odor Column

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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

5 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

3.0 ppb – 172 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.008 ppb	water (food: reference standard (water))	Literature corpus	—
Flagged: 481× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden.
3.0 ppb	water (food: fish)	Literature corpus	—
4.7 ppb	water (food: pepper)	Literature corpus	—
172 ppb	water (food: unknown)	Literature corpus	—

In air

0.009 ppb

Airborne detection — not comparable to a water threshold.

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.009 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 ethanethiol. 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 ethanethiol in it.

260 cmpds

320 cmpds

369 cmpds

393 cmpds