ethyl 2-methylbutyrate

fruity ester Key food odorant

Found in 74 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

2D Lewis Structure

Formula: C7H14O2
Molecular weight: 130.18 g/mol
PubChem CID: 24020 — full record on PubChem

Key food odorant (generalist)

Dunkel et al. 2014

Identified in the meta-analysis of 227 food samples as one of 16 generalist odorants — appears in >25% of foods, typically from generic Maillard, lipid-oxidation, or fermentation pathways. Characteristic odor: fruity.

Source: Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2014, 53, 7124–7143

Properties

Odor description: fruity, apple, sweet
Odor threshold — orthonasal, in clean water: 0.200 ppb – 0.225 ppb median 0.200 ppb · 3 published values · see all 12 with sources
Volatility: high
CAS number: 7452-79-1
Retention index: 842

Regulatory · United States

FEMA GRAS — Generally Recognized As Safe for flavoring use

✓ Exact match

FEMA number: 2443
GRAS publication: GRAS 3
FEMA primary name: ETHYL 2-METHYLBUTYRATE

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

ethyl 2-methyl butanoate ethyl 2-methylbutanoate ethyl-2-methyl butanoate ethyl-2-methylbutanoate ethyl-2-methylbutyrate

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.

fruity, apple, sweet shown above Flavornet Cas

—

apple, fruity, green, plum, sharp, sweet FlavorDB 2.0

apple, plum, sharp, sweet, green, fruity FlavorDB 2.0

fruity, apple FlavorDB 2.0

berry aroma 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

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

0.200 ppb – 0.225 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.200 ppb	water_odor	Leffingwell	—
0.200 ppb	water/ethanol 6:4 (food: american bourbon whisky)	Literature corpus	—
0.225 ppb SIDA	water	Rychlik 1998 · 2 studies	—

In a food matrix

0.001 ppb – 0.013 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.001 ppb	water (food: orange juice (reconstituted from concentrate))	Literature corpus	—
0.006 ppb	water (food: hand-squeezed grapefruit juice)	Literature corpus	—
0.013 ppb	water (food: reference standard (water))	Literature corpus	—
3.0 ppb	water (food: rice)	Literature corpus	—
Flagged: 231× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden.
15.0 ppb	water (food: unknown)	Literature corpus	—
Flagged: 1154× 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

0.010 ppb – 0.510 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.010 ppb SIDA	water_retronasal	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—
0.510 ppb SIDA	oil_retronasal	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—

Other matrix

0.260 ppb – 0.620 ppb

Measured in a non-aqueous medium (oil, starch, cellulose).

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.260 ppb	oil (sunflower oil) (food: cocoa beans)	Literature corpus	—
0.620 ppb SIDA	oil_orthonasal	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—

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 ethyl 2-methylbutyrate. 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 ethyl 2-methylbutyrate in it.

spineless monkey orange

18 cmpds

24 cmpds

28 cmpds

45 cmpds