methyl acetate
fruity esterFound in 138 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.
Look up another compound — search by name, CAS number, PubChem CID, or FEMA #.
- Formula
- C3H6O2
- Molecular weight
- 74.08 g/mol
- PubChem CID
- 6584 — full record on PubChem
Properties
- Odor description
- sweet, fruity, ethereal, solvent
- Odor threshold — in a food matrix
- 37.7 ppb – 828 ppb median 106 ppb · 4 published values · see all 8 with sources
- Volatility
- high
- CAS number
- 79-20-9
- Retention index
- 832
FEMA GRAS — Generally Recognized As Safe for flavoring use
- FEMA number
- 2676
- GRAS publication
- GRAS 3
- FEMA primary name
- METHYL ACETATE
Use-level matrix not extracted for this substance — check the source publication for current ppm guidance.
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.
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.
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
8 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.
In a food matrix
37.7 ppb – 828 ppbMeasured in a real food, where the matrix shifts detection — not a clean-water value.
| Threshold | Matrix | Source | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.120 ppb | water (food: fish) | Literature corpus | 41183907 |
| Flagged: 882× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden. | |||
| 37.7 ppb | water (food: unknown) | Literature corpus | 25717332, 32183818, 41112726 |
| 174 ppb | water (food: rice) | Literature corpus | 28784469 |
| 828 ppb | water (food: olive oil) | Literature corpus | 28671107 |
In air
1700 ppb – 3935 ppbAirborne detection — not comparable to a water threshold.
| Threshold | Matrix | Source | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3.0 ppb | air (food: peach) | PMC open access | — |
| Flagged: 567× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden. | |||
| 1700 ppb | air | Nagata 2003 | — |
| 3935 ppb | air | PMC open access | — |
Other matrix
50.0 ppbMeasured in a non-aqueous medium (oil, starch, cellulose).
| Threshold | Matrix | Source | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 50.0 ppb | wine | PMC open access | — |
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 (173.938 ppb, the engine's canonical value — see the 8 published values). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.
| Food | Concentration (ppb) | OAV | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| soybean sauce | 939750.0 | 5403 ⚡ | — |
| cocoa | 82900.0 | 477 ⚡ | Corpus paper |
| grape | 26450.0 | 152 ⚡ | PMID 16448202 |
| fish | 1500.0 | 8.62 | Corpus paper |
| capsicum | 450.0 | 2.59 | — |
| olive oil | 1.0 | 0.01 | — |
| rice | 0.5 | 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 shareEvery ingredient known to contain methyl 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 methyl acetate in it. Full concentrations are in the OAV table above.
The inverted compound index is a Pro feature — reverse-search any of 5,240 flavor molecules across the full graph.
Get a molecule-level pairing breakdown each week — which ingredients share a compound, and why it matters at the table. Free, no spam.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.
Try the pairing tools to see which ingredient combinations rely on methyl acetate, or compare two ingredients side-by-side.