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3-(methylthio)propanal (methional)

aldehyde 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 (generalist)

Dunkel et al. 2014

Identified in the meta-analysis of 227 food samples as one of 16 generalist odorants — appears in >25% of foods, typically from generic Maillard, lipid-oxidation, or fermentation pathways. Characteristic odor: cooked potato.

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

Properties

Odor description
cooked potato-like, cooked potato
Odor threshold — orthonasal, in clean water
0.200 ppb – 1.0 ppb median 0.400 ppb · 3 published values · see all 21 with sources
CAS number
3268-49-3
Retention index
910
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

21 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

0.200 ppb – 1.0 ppb

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

Threshold Matrix Source Paper
0.200 ppb water_odor Leffingwell —
0.400 ppb SIDA water Dunkel 2014 —
1.0 ppb SIDA water Rychlik 1998 · 2 studies —

In a food matrix

0.200 ppb – 1.8 ppb

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

Threshold Matrix Source Paper
0.200 ppb SIDA water (food: hungarian-type salami) Literature corpus 33714268, 10552650, 19778056 +11
0.200 ppb SIDA water (food: smoked cooked loin (pork)) Literature corpus 33714268, 10552650, 19778056 +11
0.200 ppb SIDA water (food: extruded wheat flour) Literature corpus 33714268, 10552650, 19778056 +11
0.430 ppb SIDA water (food: pink guava) Literature corpus 33714268, 10552650, 19778056 +11
0.430 ppb SIDA water (food: reference standard (water)) Literature corpus 33714268, 10552650, 19778056 +11
0.430 ppb SIDA water (food: longjing green tea infusion) Literature corpus 33714268, 10552650, 19778056 +11
0.430 ppb SIDA water (food: coffee) Literature corpus 33714268, 10552650, 19778056 +11
1.4 ppb SIDA water (food: japanese soy sauce) Literature corpus 33714268, 10552650, 19778056 +11
1.4 ppb SIDA water (food: beef vegetable gravy) Literature corpus 33714268, 10552650, 19778056 +11
1.4 ppb SIDA water (food: pork vegetable gravy) Literature corpus 33714268, 10552650, 19778056 +11
1.8 ppb SIDA water (food: hand-squeezed grapefruit juice) Literature corpus 33714268, 10552650, 19778056 +11
1.8 ppb SIDA water (food: litsea pungens fruit) Literature corpus 33714268, 10552650, 19778056 +11

Retronasal / in-mouth

5.0 ppb

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

Threshold Matrix Source Paper
0.050 ppb SIDA oil_retronasal Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies —
Flagged: 100× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden.
5.0 ppb SIDA water_retronasal Rychlik 1998 · 2 studies —
5.0 ppb water_flavor Leffingwell —

Other matrix

0.050 ppb – 0.520 ppb

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

Threshold Matrix Source Paper
0.050 ppb SIDA oil_orthonasal Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies —
0.270 ppb SIDA starch Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies —
0.520 ppb SIDA wine matrix (12% ethanol) (food: red wine) Literature corpus 33714268, 10552650, 19778056 +11

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 0.2 µg/L air 6.3e-05–450 87 no (3.9 decades)
ethanol solution 7.11 ppb 0.5–7.12 44 yes
food matrix 0.325 ppb 0.04–5e+04 1614 no (3.0 decades)
oil 0.18 ppb 0.05–0.2 33 yes
starch or other 0.27 ppb 0.27–0.27 33 yes
unstated 0.45 ppb 4e-05–60 3431 no (2.4 decades)
water 0.43 ppb 0.0014–384 4240 yes

Found in

Measured impact first, then profile share

Every ingredient known to contain 3-(methylthio)propanal (methional). 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-(methylthio)propanal (methional) in it.

coffee
beverage caffeinated
✓1 507 cmpds
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