ethyl isovalerate

fruity ester

Found in 92 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: 7945 — full record on PubChem

Properties

Odor description: fruity, apple, berry
Odor threshold — orthonasal, in clean water: 0.200 ppb – 1.6 ppb median 0.900 ppb · 2 published values · see all 16 with sources
Volatility: high
CAS number: 108-64-5
Retention index: 958

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 3-methylbutanoate ethyl 3-methylbutanoate-m ethyl-3-methyl butanoate ethyl-3-methylbutanoate

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, berry shown above Flavornet Cas

—

chemical FlavorDB 2.0, Flavordb Odor Column 2 sources agree

apple, fruit, fruity, pineapple, sweet, tutti frutti FlavorDB 2.0

fruity, sweet, wine note 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

16 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 – 1.6 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.200 ppb SIDA	water	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—
1.6 ppb	water/ethanol 6:4 (food: american bourbon whisky)	Literature corpus	17499755, 29234071, 32619948 +8

In a food matrix

10.8 ppb – 855 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.002 ppb	water (food: beer)	Literature corpus	17499755, 33889833
Flagged: 8933× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden.
0.023 ppb	water (food: reference standard (water))	Literature corpus	17499755, 29234071, 32619948 +8
Flagged: 583× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden.
0.100 ppb	water (food: lime)	Literature corpus	17499755, 29234071, 32619948 +8
Flagged: 134× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden.
10.8 ppb	water (food: unknown)	Literature corpus	33488534, 35396186
16.0 ppb	water (food: rice)	Literature corpus	38846797, 40467248
19.9 ppb	water (food: wine)	Literature corpus	32619948, 32630090, 39974541
227 ppb	water (food: peach)	Literature corpus	17499755, 29234071, 32619948 +8
855 ppb	water (food: bread)	Literature corpus	38519512

Retronasal / in-mouth

0.030 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.030 ppb SIDA	water_retronasal	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—

In air

0.013 ppb

Airborne detection — not comparable to a water threshold.

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.013 ppb	air	Nagata 2003	—

Other matrix

1.6 ppb – 3.0 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
1.6 ppb	ethanol/water (food: rum / red wine)	Literature corpus	17499755, 29234071, 32619948 +8
1.6 ppb	ethanol/water 40/60 (food: rum (aged))	Literature corpus	17499755, 29234071, 32619948 +8
1.6 ppb	ethanol/water 40/60 (food: rum (young))	Literature corpus	17499755, 29234071, 32619948 +8
3.0 ppb	wine matrix (12% ethanol) (food: rum / red wine)	Literature corpus	17499755, 29234071, 32619948 +8

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 (10.8 ppb, the engine's canonical value — see the 16 published values). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.

Food	Concentration (ppb)	OAV	Source
peach	850.8	78.8 ⚡	Corpus paper
bread	850.0	78.7 ⚡	Corpus paper
blueberry	91.0	8.43	DOI
wine	9.2	0.85	Corpus paper
rice	3.0	0.28	Corpus paper
strawberry	0.7	0.06	Corpus paper
lime	0.0	0.00	—
beer	0.0	0.00	—

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 isovalerate. 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 isovalerate in it. Full concentrations are in the OAV table above.

322 cmpds

565 cmpds

479 cmpds

32 cmpds