methionol

sulfurous thiol Key food odorant

Found in 28 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

2D Lewis Structure

Formula: C4H10OS
Molecular weight: 106.19 g/mol
PubChem CID: 10448 — 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. Characteristic odor: potato, cabbage.

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

Properties

Odor description: sweet, potato
Odor threshold — in a food matrix: 36.0 ppb – 2100 ppb median 517 ppb · 4 published values · see all 6 with sources
Volatility: high
CAS number: 505-10-2

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.

How this molecule is described

Sources disagree about odour more often than they disagree about chemistry. Rather than show one answer, here is every description on file with how many ingredient records carry it.

Descriptions on file

Ordered by how many independent descriptor streams give each wording, then by how often it appears. The bar is still replication — one source copied onto many ingredients scores high there — so the two can disagree.

sweet, potato shown above Flavornet Cas, Flavornet Name, Flavordb Odor Column 3 sources agree

—

pear FlavorDB 2.0, Flavordb Odor Column 2 sources agree

woody, butter, smoky, potato, cooked FlavorDB 2.0, Flavordb Odor Column 2 sources agree

Powerful and sweet-or-meat-like FlavorDB 2.0

flinty/gunflint, onion/garlic FlavorDB 2.0

cauliflower FlavorDB 2.0

Bars are the share of ingredient records carrying each description. High agreement means the sources replicate each other — not necessarily that they are right.

Published thresholds

6 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.

In a food matrix

36.0 ppb – 2100 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
36.0 ppb	water (food: reference standard (water))	Literature corpus	26213023, 32657431, 35396186 +1
53.0 ppb	water (food: wine)	Literature corpus	32657431, 36496598
981 ppb	water (food: lime)	Literature corpus	26213023
2100 ppb	water (food: unknown)	Literature corpus	35396186

Retronasal / in-mouth

5.0 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
5.0 ppb SIDA	water_retronasal	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—

Other matrix

180 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
180 ppb	wine matrix (12% ethanol) (food: red wine)	Literature corpus	26213023, 32657431, 35396186 +1

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.

Where you'd actually smell it

Odor Activity Value = measured concentration ÷ odor threshold (517.018675 ppb, the engine's canonical value — see the 6 published values). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.

Food	Concentration (ppb)	OAV	Source
white wine	4000.0	7.74	DOI
wine	1000.0	1.93	Corpus paper
lime	981.0	1.90	Corpus paper
cheese	11.0	0.02	PMID 41255640
madeira wine	0.0	0.00	—

Concentrations from PubMed Central Open Access papers (free literature corpus, MIT-style licensed). Copper = OAV ≥ 10 (strongly perceptible). Green = OAV ≥ 1 (perceptible).

Found in

Measured impact first, then profile share

Every ingredient known to contain methionol. 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 methionol in it. Full concentrations are in the OAV table above.

312 cmpds

565 cmpds

295 cmpds

43 cmpds