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ethyl n-butyrate

fruity ester Key food odorant

Found in 1 ingredient 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.

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

Properties

Odor description
fruity
Odor threshold — orthonasal, in clean water
1.0 ppb – 9.5 ppb median 1.0 ppb · 3 published values · see all 17 with sources
CAS number
105-54-4
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

17 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

1.0 ppb – 9.5 ppb

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

Threshold Matrix Source Paper
1.0 ppb water_odor Leffingwell —
1.0 ppb SIDA water Rychlik 1998 · 3 studies —
9.5 ppb water/ethanol 6:4 (food: american bourbon whisky) Literature corpus 17499755, 19753606, 25857434 +9

In a food matrix

0.760 ppb – 1.0 ppb

Measured in a real food, where the matrix shifts detection — not a clean-water value.

Threshold Matrix Source Paper
0.760 ppb water (food: pink guava) Literature corpus 17499755, 19753606, 25857434 +9
0.760 ppb water (food: reference standard (water)) Literature corpus 17499755, 19753606, 25857434 +9
1.0 ppb water (food: orange juice (reconstituted from concentrate)) Literature corpus 17499755, 19753606, 25857434 +9
1.0 ppb water (food: hand-squeezed grapefruit juice) Literature corpus 17499755, 19753606, 25857434 +9

Retronasal / in-mouth

0.100 ppb – 3.5 ppb

Tasted rather than smelled — a different sense, not comparable.

Threshold Matrix Source Paper
0.100 ppb SIDA water_retronasal Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies —
3.5 ppb SIDA oil_retronasal Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies —
450 ppb water_flavor Leffingwell —
Flagged: 129× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden.

In air

0.040 ppb

Airborne detection — not comparable to a water threshold.

Threshold Matrix Source Paper
0.040 ppb air Nagata 2003 —

Other matrix

9.5 ppb – 28.0 ppb

Measured in a non-aqueous medium (oil, starch, cellulose).

Threshold Matrix Source Paper
9.5 ppb ethanol/water (food: rum / red wine) Literature corpus 17499755, 19753606, 25857434 +9
9.5 ppb ethanol/water 40/60 (food: rum (aged)) Literature corpus 17499755, 19753606, 25857434 +9
9.5 ppb ethanol/water 40/60 (food: rum (young)) Literature corpus 17499755, 19753606, 25857434 +9
20.0 ppb wine matrix (12% ethanol) (food: rum / red wine) Literature corpus 17499755, 19753606, 25857434 +9
28.0 ppb SIDA oil_orthonasal Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies —
28.0 ppb oil (sunflower oil) (food: gouda cheese) Literature corpus 17499755, 19753606, 25857434 +9

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.

MediumMedianRangeValuesPapersPapers agree?
air 3 µg/L air 0.9–81.5 117 yes
ethanol solution 20 ppb 9.5–367 2321 yes
food matrix 20 ppb 0.04–3e+05 6461 no (2.6 decades)
model wine or beer 20 ppb 0.02–400 44 no (4.3 decades)
not applicable 20 ppb 20–20 11 one paper
oil 28 ppb 28–28 21 one paper
unstated 20 ppb 0.001–2e+04 155140 yes
water 0.9 ppb 0.345–820 4731 yes

Found in

Measured impact first, then profile share

Every ingredient known to contain ethyl n-butyrate. 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 n-butyrate in it.

yogurt
dairy
152 cmpds
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