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Compound sheet

Aroma molecule · pyrazine

2-methoxy-3-(1-methylethyl)-pyrazine

Smells ofsweetness, and, caramel-like, flavor

Found in 1 ingredient. We hold no measured concentration for it in any of them yet, so we cannot say where it is strong enough to smell.

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Formula
—
Mass
152.19 g/mol
CAS
25773-40-4
PubChem
—
Threshold · water
5.0 ppb
Class
pyrazine
Status
Key food odorant

01How little it takes

  • in waterpapers disagree 0.0039
  • in a food 0.036
  • in wine/beerpapers disagree 0.015
  • in oil 0.03

ppb, log scale · tick = median of published values, bar = full range, from open-access paper tables (not reviewed)

02Where it turns up

  • Drinks1

of the 1 ingredient that contain it, by food group

03What it travels with

Too few ingredients to say what it travels with.

What does 2-methoxy-3-(1-methylethyl)-pyrazine smell like?

Sources describe it as sweetness and caramel-like flavor.

It is a key food odorant (intermediary): identified in the meta-analysis of 227 food samples as one of 57 intermediary odorants, which appear in 5–25% of foods. Source: Dunkel et al. 2014, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 53, 7124–7143

Which foods contain 2-methoxy-3-(1-methylethyl)-pyrazine?

We list 1 ingredient that contain it, but presence is not the same as smell. What matters is how much is there compared with how little it takes to notice it. That ratio is the odour activity value (OAV): above 1, you can smell it.

Found in

Measured foods first, then real food profiles, then thin or composite records (marked). The figure beside each is how many compounds that ingredient has in total, not the amount of 2-methoxy-3-(1-methylethyl)-pyrazine in it. ✓n = sources that recorded the link.

How strong is 2-methoxy-3-(1-methylethyl)-pyrazine?

Orthonasal, in clean water: 5.0 ppb to 10.0 ppb, median 5.0 ppb, from 3 published values (1 flagged as outliers and left out of the range). Thresholds printed in paper tables for oil are about 8× the ones for water.

Published thresholds

6 measured values from the literature, grouped by what was measured: a threshold smelled in clean water, tasted, or measured in a real food are different quantities and are not pooled.

Orthonasal, in clean water · 5.0 ppb–10.0 ppb ppbThe reference measurement — smelled in water. OAV is computed against this.
ThresholdMatrixSourcePaper
0.003 ppb SIDA water Rychlik 1998 · 2 studies —
Flagged: 1667× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source, shown rather than hidden.
5.0 ppb water_odor Leffingwell —
10.0 ppb water_odor Leffingwell —
In a food matrix · 0.004 ppb–0.013 ppb ppbMeasured in a real food, where the matrix shifts detection — not a clean-water value.
ThresholdMatrixSourcePaper
0.004 ppb water (food: reference standard (water)) Literature corpus —
0.013 ppb water (food: beef vegetable gravy) Literature corpus —
0.013 ppb water (food: pork vegetable gravy) Literature corpus —

Only values we can attribute are listed. Where a compendium’s licence does not permit public attribution its figures are omitted, so every number here traces to a citable source.

Thresholds in published tables

MediumMedianRangeValuesPapersPapers agree?
food matrix 0.036 ppb 0.002–0.07 22 yes
model wine or beer 0.015 ppb 0.015–0.015 11 one paper
oil 0.03 ppb 0.01–0.05 22 yes
unstated 0.002 ppb 0.002–20 66 yes
water 0.0039 ppb 0.0039–0.0039 11 one paper

Numbers printed in open-access papers, grouped by the medium the table states. Median and full range; “agree” means two or more papers whose middle 80% of values sit within 100×. Not reviewed.

Is 2-methoxy-3-(1-methylethyl)-pyrazine safe to eat?

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

2-methoxy-3-(1-methylethyl)-pyrazine questions

What does 2-methoxy-3-(1-methylethyl)-pyrazine smell like?

Sources describe 2-methoxy-3-(1-methylethyl)-pyrazine as sweetness, and, caramel-like and flavor. It is one of the key food odorants identified by Dunkel et al. (2014).

Which foods contain 2-methoxy-3-(1-methylethyl)-pyrazine?

We list 1 ingredient that contain 2-methoxy-3-(1-methylethyl)-pyrazine.

How strong is 2-methoxy-3-(1-methylethyl)-pyrazine?

The median of 3 published odour thresholds in water is 5.0 ppb (range 5.0 to 10.0 ppb). Published values in oil are about 8 times higher than in water.

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

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Cite this analysis
Plain text
Compound Kitchen (2026). 2-methoxy-3-(1-methylethyl)-pyrazine compound data sheet. https://compkitchen.com/compound/2-methoxy-3-%281-methylethyl%29-pyrazine. Accessed 2026-11-05.
BibTeX
@misc{compkitchen_compound_2_methoxy_3_1_methylethyl_pyrazine_compound_data_sheet_2026,
  title  = {2-methoxy-3-(1-methylethyl)-pyrazine compound data sheet},
  author = {{Compound Kitchen}},
  year   = {2026},
  url    = {https://compkitchen.com/compound/2-methoxy-3-%281-methylethyl%29-pyrazine},
  note   = {Accessed: 2026-11-05}
}

Methodology DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19719459 · CC BY 4.0 · Citations are a request, not a requirement.