ethyl 3-(methylthio)propanoate

fruity ester Key food odorant

Found in 3 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

2D Lewis Structure

Formula: C6H12O2S
Molecular weight: 148.23 g/mol
PubChem CID: 61592 — full record on PubChem

Key food odorant (individualist)

Dunkel et al. 2014

Identified in the meta-analysis of 227 food samples as one of 151 individualist odorants — appears in <5% of foods, carries the diagnostic signature of specific ingredients.

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

Properties

Odor description: sulfury, metallic, pineapple, fruity, ripe, pulpy, tomato
Odor threshold — orthonasal, in clean water: 7.0 ppb 1 published value · see all 1 with sources
Volatility: high
CAS number: 13327-56-5
Retention index: 1102

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

1 measured value 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

7.0 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
7.0 ppb	water_odor	Leffingwell	—

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	7.69 µg/L air	7–8.45	3	1	one paper
ethanol solution	3080 ppb	3.08e+03–3.08e+03	1	1	one paper
food matrix	1544 ppb	7–3.08e+03	2	2	no (2.6 decades)
unstated	8.45 ppb	7–3.08e+03	6	6	yes
water	7.725 ppb	7–8.45	4	3	yes

Found in

Measured impact first, then profile share

Every ingredient known to contain ethyl 3-(methylthio)propanoate. 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 ethyl 3-(methylthio)propanoate in it.

364 cmpds

✓1 383 cmpds

Into the chemistry?

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 ethyl 3-(methylthio)propanoate, or compare two ingredients side-by-side.