3-methyl-1-butanol acetate

fruity ester Key food odorant

Found in 5 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

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: fruity
Odor threshold — orthonasal, in clean water: 2.0 ppb – 245 ppb median 19.0 ppb · 3 published values · see all 7 with sources
CAS number: 123-92-2

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.

Published thresholds

7 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

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.

Thresholds in published tables

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

Medium	Median	Range	Values	Papers	Papers agree?
air	25 µg/L air	0.918–93.9	8	7	yes
ethanol solution	55.76 ppb	0.15–245	22	21	yes
food matrix	30 ppb	0.13–7.3e+04	71	66	no (2.7 decades)
model wine or beer	30 ppb	30–160	5	5	yes
not applicable	30 ppb	30–30	1	1	one paper
unstated	30 ppb	0.15–9.4e+04	168	151	no (2.4 decades)
water	3 ppb	0.15–93.9	33	27	no (2.3 decades)

Found in

Measured impact first, then profile share

Every ingredient known to contain 3-methyl-1-butanol 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 3-methyl-1-butanol acetate in it.

24 cmpds

211 cmpds

315 cmpds

366 cmpds