ethyl pentanoate

fruity ester Key food odorant

Found in 69 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: 10882 — full record on PubChem

Key food odorant (individualist)

Dunkel et al. 2014

Identified in the meta-analysis of 227 food samples as one of 151 individualist odorants — appears in <5% of foods, carries the diagnostic signature of specific ingredients.

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

Properties

Odor description: yeast, fruit
Odor threshold — orthonasal, in clean water: 3.2 ppb 2 published values · see all 12 with sources
Volatility: high
CAS number: 539-82-2
Retention index: 901

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 valerate

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.

yeast, fruit shown above Flavornet Cas

—

chemical FlavorDB 2.0, Flavordb Odor Column 2 sources agree

apple, fruit, fruity, green, pineapple, sweet, tropical, yeast FlavorDB 2.0

yeast, fruit, sweet, fruity, apple, pineapple, green, tropical FlavorDB 2.0

apple, chemical, creamy, cooked 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

3.2 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
3.2 ppb	water_odor	Leffingwell	—
3.2 ppb SIDA	water	Rychlik 1998 · 2 studies	—

In a food matrix

472 ppb – 924 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: beer)	Literature corpus	25857434, 38846797, 40467248
Flagged: 30747× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden.
2.0 ppb	water (food: rice)	Literature corpus	38846797, 40467248
Flagged: 118× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden.
472 ppb	water (food: unknown)	Literature corpus	25857434
924 ppb	water (food: tea)	Literature corpus	25857434, 38846797, 40467248

Retronasal / in-mouth

94.0 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
94.0 ppb	water_flavor	Leffingwell	—

In air

0.110 ppb

Airborne detection — not comparable to a water threshold.

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.110 ppb	air	Nagata 2003	—

Other matrix

3.0 ppb – 4.9 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
3.0 ppb	ethanol/water (food: rum / red wine)	Literature corpus	25857434, 38846797, 40467248
3.0 ppb	ethanol/water 40/60 (food: rum (aged))	Literature corpus	25857434, 38846797, 40467248
3.0 ppb	ethanol/water 40/60 (food: rum (young))	Literature corpus	25857434, 38846797, 40467248
4.9 ppb	wine matrix (12% ethanol) (food: rum / red wine)	Literature corpus	25857434, 38846797, 40467248

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 (3.25 ppb, the engine's canonical value — see the 12 published values). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.

Food	Concentration (ppb)	OAV	Source
wine	49210.0	15142 ⚡	PMID 41367417
melon	9425.5	2900 ⚡	PMC12146550
tea	923.0	284 ⚡	Corpus paper
rice	1.0	0.31	Corpus paper
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 pentanoate. 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 pentanoate in it. Full concentrations are in the OAV table above.

wine

measured · OAV 15141.54

565 cmpds

102 cmpds

107 cmpds

109 cmpds