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Compound sheet

Molecule · pyrazine

5-methyl-2,3-diethylpyrazine

Found in 2 ingredients. 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
150.22 g/mol
CAS
18138-04-0
PubChem
—
Threshold · water
0.090 ppb
Class
pyrazine
Status
Key food odorant

01How little it takes

  • in water 0.084
  • in a foodpapers disagree 0.031
  • in oilpapers disagree 0.5

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

02Where it turns up

  • Vegetables1
  • Meat & fish1

of the 2 ingredients that contain it, by food group

03What it travels with

Too few ingredients to say what it travels with.

What does 5-methyl-2,3-diethylpyrazine smell like?

We hold no odour description for 5-methyl-2,3-diethylpyrazine.

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 5-methyl-2,3-diethylpyrazine?

We list 2 ingredients 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 5-methyl-2,3-diethylpyrazine in it. ✓n = sources that recorded the link.

How strong is 5-methyl-2,3-diethylpyrazine?

Orthonasal, in clean water: 0.090 ppb, from 1 published value. Thresholds printed in paper tables for oil are about 6× the ones for water.

Published thresholds

9 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 · 0.090 ppb ppbThe reference measurement — smelled in water. OAV is computed against this.
ThresholdMatrixSourcePaper
0.090 ppb SIDA water Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies —
In a food matrix · 0.016 ppb ppbMeasured in a real food, where the matrix shifts detection — not a clean-water value.
ThresholdMatrixSourcePaper
0.016 ppb water (food: longjing green tea infusion) Literature corpus —
Retronasal / in-mouth · 0.050 ppb–0.900 ppb ppbTasted rather than smelled — a different sense, not comparable.
ThresholdMatrixSourcePaper
0.050 ppb SIDA water_retronasal Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies —
0.900 ppb SIDA oil_retronasal Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies —
Other matrix · 0.140 ppb–1.2 ppb ppbMeasured in a non-aqueous medium (oil, starch, cellulose).
ThresholdMatrixSourcePaper
0.140 ppb SIDA starch Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies —
0.500 ppb SIDA oil_orthonasal Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies —
0.500 ppb oil (sunflower oil) (food: cocoa beans) Literature corpus —
0.500 ppb oil (sunflower oil) (food: cocoa powder) Literature corpus —
1.2 ppb SIDA cellulose Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies —

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 0.031 ppb 0.001–7.2 55 no (3.9 decades)
oil 0.5 ppb 0.5–0.5 11 one paper
unstated 0.05 ppb 0.0031–61 1511 no (2.9 decades)
water 0.084 ppb 0.031–1 55 yes

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 5-methyl-2,3-diethylpyrazine 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.

5-methyl-2,3-diethylpyrazine questions

Which foods contain 5-methyl-2,3-diethylpyrazine?

We list 2 ingredients that contain 5-methyl-2,3-diethylpyrazine.

How strong is 5-methyl-2,3-diethylpyrazine?

The median of 1 published odour thresholds in water is 0.090 ppb. Published values in oil are about 6 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). 5-methyl-2,3-diethylpyrazine compound data sheet. https://compkitchen.com/compound/5-methyl-2%2C3-diethylpyrazine. Accessed 2026-11-03.
BibTeX
@misc{compkitchen_compound_5_methyl_2_3_diethylpyrazine_compound_data_sheet_2026,
  title  = {5-methyl-2,3-diethylpyrazine compound data sheet},
  author = {{Compound Kitchen}},
  year   = {2026},
  url    = {https://compkitchen.com/compound/5-methyl-2%2C3-diethylpyrazine},
  note   = {Accessed: 2026-11-03}
}

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