Compound
Dimethyl sulphide
A sulphur compound that reads as cooked vegetable in quantity and adds an indefinable savoury depth in trace, and which builds slowly during storage rather than during fermentation.
Also called DMS.
- Class
- Sulphur compounds
- Formula
- C2H6S
- How often it matters
- Specialist — met in particular circumstances
What it does in cider
- Forms from sulphur-containing precursors carried in the fruit, chiefly through slow breakdown rather than yeast action.
- Accumulates during warm storage, so its concentration reflects how a product has been kept as much as how it was made.
- Contributes cooked sweetcorn and cabbage notes above threshold and a savoury complexity below it.
- Is not removed by copper, unlike the thiols, so it is distinguished from a reduction fault by its response to treatment as well as by its smell.
How it is perceived
What the compound registers as, and at roughly what concentration. Perception is not a property of the molecule alone: sugar, tannin and carbonation all change where a threshold falls.
- cooked sweetcorn
- cabbage
- asparagus
- tinned vegetable
- savoury depth at trace
Perceptible in the tens of micrograms per litre in most drinks, which puts it well above the thiol thresholds and means a clear DMS character represents a substantial concentration.
Descriptors it is responsible for
Sensory records that name Dimethyl sulphide as a cause. Each states the perception and the mechanism behind it.
- Cooked cabbage — A vegetal sulphur note from dimethyl sulphide, rising slowly during storage rather than during fermentation.
- Cooked juice — The flat, jammy, slightly sulphurous character of over-heated juice or concentrate, recorded as a processing fault.
- Rubber — A burnt-rubber note from disulphides and higher mercaptans, generally a late stage of reductive fault.
- Garlic — A pungent allium note from specific thiols and disulphides, occasionally from orchard spray residues.
- Nettle — A sharp green-vegetal note with a faint sulphurous edge, met in early-picked and reductively handled cider.
The structure it moves
| Dimension | What it is |
|---|---|
| Fermentation character | Aromas made by the ferment rather than carried in from the fruit. |
| Oxidative character | Nutty, bruised-apple, sherry-like or cardboard notes from exposure to air. |
What forms it
Processes that put this compound into the drink, or increase how much of it is there.
Cellar storage
Holding packaged cider in conditions that let it change slowly and predictably, where stability of temperature matters more than the temperature itself.
Shelf-life management
Establishing how long a cider stays acceptable in its package and setting a durability date that reflects evidence rather than convention.
Pasteurisation
Heating cider enough to inactivate the organisms that would spoil it, either in the sealed package or in-line before filling, at a measurable cost in fresh aroma.
What removes or limits it
Processes that reduce it, hold it below a threshold, or stop it forming in the first place.
Cold chain
Keeping an unpasteurised, unfiltered or back-sweetened cider refrigerated from the packaging hall to the point of sale, because refrigeration is the only thing holding it stable.
Cold maturation
Holding cider at low temperature so that it settles bright, sheds colloidal material and stops changing microbially, without any additive or treatment being applied.
Faults it is implicated in
Being implicated is not the same as being a fault. Several of the compounds on this site are ordinary constituents of a sound cider and define a named fault only above a concentration.
Reduction
A closed, stale, slightly sulphurous character in cider held under strongly oxygen-free conditions, sometimes clearing with air and sometimes not.
Cooked character
A stewed-apple, caramel or jam-like character from heat applied to juice or cider, most often through pasteurisation or hot storage.
Atypical ageing
A cider that loses its fruit unusually early and develops a flat, faintly acrid or naphthalene-like character — a syndrome described in white wine and less firmly established in cider.
Light strike
A skunky, cooked-cabbage or drain-like aroma produced when light acting on riboflavin generates sulphur compounds in a bottle.
Mercaptan taint
Onion, garlic, burnt rubber and cooked-cabbage aromas from thiols and disulphides formed when hydrogen sulphide is left in cider long enough to react onwards.
About Dimethyl sulphide
Dimethyl sulphide sits apart from the other sulphur faults because it is not a fermentation problem. It arises from sulphur-containing precursors in the fruit that break down slowly, and the breakdown is accelerated by warmth. A cider stored in a hot warehouse for a summer can develop it; the same cider kept cold will not.
That makes it a storage marker rather than a production one, and it belongs in any diagnosis of a product that tasted correct at packaging and cooked-vegetable-like on the shelf. It also distinguishes itself from the thiols in the cellar: copper fining removes mercaptans and does nothing to dimethyl sulphide, so a reduction treatment that fails to fix a vegetal note has probably identified the wrong compound.
At low concentration it is not necessarily unwelcome. It contributes to savoury complexity in several fermented drinks and is a recognised positive at trace level in some beer styles. In cider it is most often met as an unwanted consequence of poor cold chain.
Related compounds
Compounds it is formed from, converted into, confused with, or routinely met alongside.
Sulphur compounds
Hydrogen sulphide
The rotten-egg gas a nitrogen-starved yeast produces, detectable at concentrations too small to measure easily, and removable only if it is caught before it becomes something worse.
Sulphur compounds
Mercaptans
What hydrogen sulphide becomes if it is left alone: onion, garlic and rubber notes that are far harder to remove than the gas they came from.
What people ask next
Questions readers ask about the things this page mentions. Each one goes to the section that answers it rather than to a page written to receive the question.
- How long does cider last — An unopened commercial cider is usually at its finest within a year of packaging, and filtered, pasteurised products carry a stated date. Strong, tannic, bottle-conditioned ciders can improve for several years.
- Does cider need to be refrigerated — Unopened, no — cool and dark is enough for most cider. Unpasteurised, unfiltered cider keeps far better cold, and anything opened should go in the fridge.
- How should i store cider — Cool, dark and at a steady temperature. Light causes light-strike in clear glass, warmth accelerates oxidation, and temperature swings push cider past the closure of a bottle that is not tightly sealed.
- How is cider pasteurised
- What does reduction mean in cider
- Why does my cider taste cooked
Where to go next
- All compounds — Grouped by what the fruit brings and what the ferment makes of it.
- Sensory — Every descriptor, with the compound or process that causes it.
- Microbiology — The organisms whose metabolism most of this chemistry belongs to.
Sources
What this page rests on. Where a source is marked as registered rather than read, CiderHQ is recording that the body is authoritative on the subject without claiming to have worked through the document itself. See our evidence policy for what each state means.
The Science of Cidermaking and associated technical writing
Andrew Lea · reference work · passage verified 2026-08-24
Written by a food chemist who worked at Long Ashton on apple phenolics. Unusual among specialist cider writing in that it is primary-research-adjacent: the author is describing work he did, and cites the literature. This is why it is registered at tier 1 for chemistry while a general cider book is not.
Hochschule Geisenheim University — beverage technology
Hochschule Geisenheim · university · retrieved 2026-08-24
German beverage-technology research covering apple wine and fruit juice processing, including the enzymology of clarification.