isoamyl acetate

fruity ester Key food odorant

Found in 127 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: 31276 — 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, banana.

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

Properties

Odor description: banana, pear, fruity
Odor threshold — orthonasal, in clean water: 2.0 ppb – 245 ppb median 19.0 ppb · 3 published values · see all 16 with sources
Volatility: high
CAS number: 123-92-2
Retention index: 1116

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

isopentyl acetate

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.

banana, pear, fruity shown above Flavornet Cas, Flavornet Name, Flavordb Odor Column 3 sources agree

—

banana FlavorDB 2.0, Flavordb Odor Column 2 sources agree

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

malty FlavorDB 2.0, Flavordb Odor Column 2 sources agree

banana, bitter, fruity, solvent, sweet FlavorDB 2.0

sweet, fruity, estery, banana- and pear-like 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

2.0 ppb – 245 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
2.0 ppb	water_odor	Leffingwell	—
19.0 ppb SIDA	water	Rychlik 1998 · 3 studies	—
245 ppb SIDA	water/ethanol 6:4 (food: american bourbon whisky)	Literature corpus	18570373, 19753606, 25939071 +14

In a food matrix

2.1 ppb – 872 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.090 ppb SIDA	water (food: banana)	Literature corpus	18570373, 19753606, 25939071 +14
Flagged: 389× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden.
0.326 ppb SIDA	water (food: beer)	Literature corpus	18570373, 19753606, 25939071 +14
Flagged: 107× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden.
2.1 ppb SIDA	water (food: grape)	Literature corpus	18570373, 19753606, 25939071 +14
33.0 ppb	water (food: rice)	Literature corpus	26973621, 38846797, 40467248
35.0 ppb	water (food: tea)	Literature corpus	31861730, 32796601, 35956905
52.0 ppb	water (food: wine)	Literature corpus	25939071, 32397426, 32657431 +1
83.0 ppb	water (food: beef)	Literature corpus	28911457
457 ppb	water (food: lime)	Literature corpus	41048468
872 ppb SIDA	water (food: unknown)	Literature corpus	18570373, 19753606, 33995294 +1

Retronasal / in-mouth

3.0 ppb

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

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

Other matrix

30.0 ppb – 250 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
30.0 ppb SIDA	wine matrix (12% ethanol) (food: rum / red wine)	Literature corpus	18570373, 19753606, 25939071 +14
245 ppb SIDA	ethanol/water 40/60 (food: rum (aged))	Literature corpus	18570373, 19753606, 25939071 +14
250 ppb SIDA	ethanol/water (food: rum / red wine)	Literature corpus	18570373, 19753606, 25939071 +14

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

Food	Concentration (ppb)	OAV	Source
wine	55555.0	1683 ⚡	PMID 40862136
honey	13140.0	398 ⚡	PMID 35927420
beer	7390.0	224 ⚡	PMID 37185768
banana	6000.0	182 ⚡	PMID 34389768
grape	5000.0	152 ⚡	PMID 11308345
lime	1125.0	34.1 ⚡	Corpus paper
tea	100.0	3.03	Corpus paper
rice	30.0	0.91	Corpus paper
beef	11.8	0.36	Corpus paper
red wine	4.8	0.15	—
mead	4.0	0.12	—
strawberry	0.8	0.02	—

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 isoamyl acetate. 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 isoamyl acetate in it. Full concentrations are in the OAV table above.

wine

measured · OAV 1683.48

565 cmpds

honey

measured · OAV 398.18

364 cmpds

beer

measured · OAV 223.94

457 cmpds

banana

measured · OAV 181.82

366 cmpds