ethyl caproate

fruity ester Key food odorant

Found in 137 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

2D Lewis Structure

Formula: C8H16O2
Molecular weight: 144.21 g/mol
PubChem CID: 31265 — full record on PubChem

Key food odorant (intermediary)

Dunkel et al. 2014

Identified in the meta-analysis of 227 food samples as one of 57 intermediary odorants — appears in 5–25% of foods. Characteristic odor: fruity, pineapple.

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

Properties

Odor description: fruity, apple peel, pineapple, sweet, green
Odor threshold — orthonasal, in clean water: 0.750 ppb – 30.0 ppb median 1.0 ppb · 3 published values · see all 26 with sources
Volatility: high
CAS number: 123-66-0
Retention index: 989

Not in FEMA GRAS publications 1-33. Of 3,367 listed flavoring substances, none match this compound name. May still be food-safe under other regulatory routes (FDA 21 CFR 172, EFSA, JECFA) — check femaflavor.org for the authoritative current list.

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 hexanoate

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.

apple peel, fruity, sweet Flavornet Cas

—

fruity, sweet FlavorDB 2.0, Flavordb Odor Column 2 sources agree

fermented, clove FlavorDB 2.0, Flavordb Odor Column 2 sources agree

fermented, chemical FlavorDB 2.0, Flavordb Odor Column 2 sources agree

apple peel, banana, fruit, fruity, green, pineapple, sweet, waxy 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

26 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

0.750 ppb – 30.0 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.750 ppb SIDA	water	Rychlik 1998 · 4 studies	—
1.0 ppb	water_odor	Leffingwell	—
30.0 ppb SIDA	water/ethanol 6:4 (food: american bourbon whisky)	Literature corpus	18570373, 15826061, 17499755 +25

In a food matrix

0.320 ppb – 497 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.031 ppb	water (food: tea)	Literature corpus	31861730, 41551788
Flagged: 287× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden.
0.320 ppb	water (food: beer)	Literature corpus	17499755, 33889833
0.400 ppb SIDA	water (food: grape)	Literature corpus	18570373, 15826061, 17499755 +25
0.870 ppb SIDA	water (food: goat milk)	Literature corpus	18570373, 15826061, 17499755 +25
2.2 ppb	water (food: orange)	Literature corpus	37515910
4.9 ppb	water (food: cheese)	Literature corpus	40335862
5.0 ppb SIDA	water (food: hand-squeezed grapefruit juice)	Literature corpus	18570373, 15826061, 17499755 +25
13.0 ppb SIDA	water (food: apple)	Literature corpus	18570373, 15826061, 17499755 +25
142 ppb SIDA	water (food: unknown)	Literature corpus	18570373, 25717332, 25857434 +3
148 ppb	water (food: wine)	Literature corpus	25939071, 32619948, 32630090 +3
497 ppb	water (food: peanut)	Literature corpus	41103313
958 ppb	water (food: lime)	Literature corpus	15826061, 24789719, 41048468
Flagged: 106× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden.
1003 ppb SIDA	water (food: bread)	Literature corpus	18570373, 38519512
Flagged: 111× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden.
2954 ppb	water (food: rice)	Literature corpus	25442558, 38846797, 40467248 +1
Flagged: 328× 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

0.500 ppb – 20.0 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.500 ppb SIDA	water_retronasal	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—
20.0 ppb SIDA	oil_retronasal	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—

Other matrix

4.9 ppb – 100 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
4.9 ppb SIDA	wine matrix (12% ethanol) (food: rum / red wine)	Literature corpus	18570373, 15826061, 17499755 +25
29.7 ppb SIDA	ethanol/water 40/60 (food: rum (aged))	Literature corpus	18570373, 15826061, 17499755 +25
29.7 ppb SIDA	ethanol/water 40/60 (food: rum (young))	Literature corpus	18570373, 15826061, 17499755 +25
30.0 ppb SIDA	ethanol/water (food: rum / red wine)	Literature corpus	18570373, 15826061, 17499755 +25
40.0 ppb SIDA	oil_orthonasal	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—
40.0 ppb SIDA	oil (sunflower oil) (food: gouda cheese)	Literature corpus	18570373, 15826061, 17499755 +25
100 ppb SIDA	wine (food: red wine (cabernet sauvignon))	Literature corpus	18570373, 15826061, 17499755 +25

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 (4.9375 ppb, the engine's canonical value — see the 26 published values). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.

Food	Concentration (ppb)	OAV	Source
baijiu	170560.0	34544 ⚡	PMID 34135875
wine	41895.0	8485 ⚡	PMID 41367417
whisky	15300.0	3099 ⚡	Corpus paper
grape	12500.0	2532 ⚡	PMID 11308345
white wine	3030.0	614 ⚡	DOI
orange	1014.0	205 ⚡	Corpus paper
bread	1004.0	203 ⚡	Corpus paper
peanut	1001.8	203 ⚡	Corpus paper
milk	800.3	162 ⚡	Corpus paper
lime	20.4	4.13	Corpus paper
strawberry	6.9	1.40	Corpus paper
rice	5.0	1.01	Corpus paper
cheese	2.7	0.55	PMID 39360317
tea	0.6	0.12	Corpus paper
mango	0.1	0.02	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 ethyl caproate. 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 caproate in it. Full concentrations are in the OAV table above.

baijiu

measured · OAV 34543.8

201 cmpds

wine

measured · OAV 8485.06

565 cmpds

whisky

measured · OAV 3098.73

154 cmpds

grape

measured · OAV 2531.65

578 cmpds