Why does it taste sour??? Someone help me!!!

[cjeanean]

I made a huge 5 gallon pot of spaghetti sauce on Friday night, and it tasted awesome. Last night my husband reheated the whole 5 gallon pot instead of taking a small amount out and heating just enough to eat. Now, today, after being refrigerated all night, the sauce tastes sour-ish. What happened??? After it was cooked it was refrigerated, and last night after it was reheated it tasted fine. But today it tastes weird, and I don't know why. There's no way it went bad!!! Anyone have any ideas??? Thanks!!!

 

[redhen]

Did he reheat it at too high a heat? If he burned it at all...it would taste sour/funny. Sometimes you can add sugar to get rid of sour taste..i think...

 

[cjeanean]

No, it doesn't taste burnt, I know it's not burnt. It's got a little "zing" to it, almost tingly tasting. I don't know what's going on, and there's a little over half of it left and I think I'm gonna throw it away. I hate wasting that much food!!! Gawd, this is driving me crazy!!!! I don't want the kids to get sick, they already ate some before I tasted it....I just gave them some fruit and vegetable rinse stuff that prevents food poisoning, so they should be okay, but I'm still freakin out about what would have caused it to taste like this...

 

[princess araucana]

Um it might have gone bad... When you have such a huge pot it takes a long time for it to cool down and also to reheat so it could been at a temp where microbes could grow.... sorry!

 

[FrenchHen]

did you leave the seeds in the tomatoes? That can make it bitter.

 

[Katy]

What kind of pot did you make it in? Maybe the acid in the tomatoes is reacting to the metal.

 

[crazy huhn]

Have you used some fresh tomatoes or canned ones? If maybe just one fresh tomatoe was kind of on the edge of getting bad, it could have caused the entire pot of sauce getting bad. I would play it safe and discard (maybe compost, so you will not feel that bad.....).

 

[jvls1942]

Quote:
this was my first thought also.. tomato and aluminum pots do not go well together..


another thing is that there might have been some fermentation going on.. fermentation uses up sugar and it does not take long to get started..

that might the reason for the "zing" too..

 

[Eggs4Sale]

I was thinking reaction with pot, if it's aluminum. Tomato sauce is corrosive and they don't recommend cooking in aluminum OR storing in aluminum or covering with aluminum foil.
I've done this and noticed the foil takes on a tarnished sort of burnt look.

 

[cjeanean]

The pan is stainless steel....I used canned tomatoes...I don't know what the deal is, I've never has this problem before. I talked to my mom and the 2 things we think it boils down to is it either went bad because it's such a big pot (like princess araucana said) or it's the acidity. I'm going to add some sugar to it tomorrow to see if that helps, and if it doesn't then I'm just gonna throw it away. I've kept sauce well refrigerated for a week before and it's been fine, so there's gotta be something else going on. Thanks, everyone....I just hate the thought of throwing that much sauce away!!! There's like 7 pounds of sausage, and so much beef and pork and meatballs....ARGH!!!!