Perfectly ripe homegrown tomatoes from seeds/seedlings chosen for flavor rather than surviving transport?

My first guess would be the 2-year-old crushed tomatoes. They may have acquired a sour taste. Second guess is sugar. It sounds like you have a lot of tomatoes. You need a lot of sugar to bring everything back to neutral.

Just read this again - if you added the sugar AFTER the tomatoes cooked down, that would also explain the tartness. The sugar has to go in at the beginning.

Thanks both of you! It could be that my old jars are too old. I don't have too much left of it, fortunately.

These are tomatoes from plants that I have grown from seed, and yes, chosen for flavor most definitely. My red chili is amazing because of these wonderful tomatoes!

However, I love flavorful, but this was acidic I think, felt like it was almost burning my tongue. The sugar went in after cooking it down. Why should it go in first? I'm not understanding the difference if it melts and blends into the sauce? Nice to know though, but how do I know how much to put in? I added it "to taste" afterwards, but I can't do that if I add it first, since the sauce will concentrate.

I really appreciate the advice here, and loving the idea of using grated carrots instead of sugar. I was actually considering whether that's what the commercial companies do, adding pureed vegetables for thickness and mellow it, but I didn't see any in the ingredient list.

We ate it for dinner tonight and in the end it was really yummy. But it's no wonder, after adding cream, parmesan, beef grease etc.!! Haha!

"The sugar went in after cooking it down. Why should it go in first? I'm
not understanding the difference if it melts and blends into the sauce?
Nice to know though, but how do I know how much to put in? I added it
"to taste" afterwards, but I can't do that if I add it first, since the
sauce will concentrate."

It's a chemical reaction that has to do with the evaporation of water and the conversion of the sugar to something else. I'm no chemist, but I'm sure one of the experts can explain it better. All I know is that having made sauce for over 45 years, the sugar has to go in first. Actually, all the spices should go in together.

As far as how much sugar to use - hold out your hand and make a cup with your palm - 1-1/2 times that amount to start.

Thank you very much!

I don't know about the commercial companies, but the Italian (from Italia) mamma who taught me, taught me about the carrots as well. 2-3 good sized bunch carrots in 10 qt. of sauce. Maybe four babies. The commercial tomatoes are sweet now, and I don't add any sugar, but in the old days, I'd add it by the tablespoon. Maybe two TBSP for the same 10 qt. All of this is approximate, of course.

You were reducing a lot, going from juice/puree, so you might want to try adding some sugar when you think it's halfway reduced, checking it at a quarter way reduced, and adding more if you think it needs it, check again when it's just about done, but could still stand to be cooked a little longer. Then you're still adjusting to taste, but more of it has more time to work its magic.

There's no way to know exact measurements from harvest to harvest, so learning how to judge by taste before it's cooked down completely is the best method.

Good luck on your next try!

I did mine the same as you, and tasted the same as yours, too tard and too intense.

This is how I make my tomato sauce now.

Home grown tomatoes are very tasty, but not everyone of them. I use the not so good tasting ones for sauce making.

Home grown tomatoes are very tasty, but not the whole tomato. I cut the tomatoes horizontally, The tops (shoulders) are not as tasty as the bottoms. they go into the pile for making sauce.

I cook the tomatoes, skin on, without stirring. The tomatoes will produce a lot of clear liquid juice. I throw the liquid away, or use the liquid for cooking other dishes.

More cooking, more clear juice. The point is to remove as much water as possible without boiling the water away. Boiling down make the taste too intense.

I use a hand mixer to turn the tomatoes into a thick paste and use a sieve to separate the skin and seeds.

With the skinless, seedless paste, I add seasoning to make the paste into sauce.

I have so much sauce made, and not enough freezer space to keep them so I dehydrate my sauce.

I may even turn my sauce into tomato powder.

dcarch

Grandma always told me to add a spoonful of sugar to tomato products, as we always grew our own. The commercial stuff has sugar or corn syrup or some other sweetener, and probably a lot more than a tablespoon. Plus, as has been mentioned, they use commercially grown tomatoes, bred and grown for less acidity and less flavor.

Like Plllog, I add grated carrots to tomato sauces, both for additional nutrition and for sweetness. No one even notices the carrots, but they notice the flavor.

I regularly use tomatoes that I've canned two years ago, with no apparent problems in flavor or texture, so if they were properly canned I don't think the age was the issue.

Annie

It makes no difference when you add the sugar.
I find it interesting that most are saying to add sugar to tomato sauce made with home grown tomatoes. Every time I have made sauce with home grown tomatoes, it's lemon, or some very dry red wine that I need to add. Canned tomatoes almost have citric acid added...helps with preservation....but home grown, vine ripened tomatoes are sweet....and the sauce lacks "something" without some acid.
But of course I am making tomato sauce....with onions and peppers cooked in a bit of oil and tomatoes and some grated carrot....all of which adds to the sweetness.

I don't care for sweetened tomato sauces.

I typically make marinara using olive oil, fresh garlic, S&P, then fresh basil as it comes off the heat. This year instead of doing that for my freezer stash I roasted the tomatoes instead. Made a vodka sauce with one batch the other night. Was excellent! That'll be my go to method from now on.

LIndaC, my tomatoes have citric acid. NCHFP gives the option of citric acid or lemon juice and since Mother is allergic to lemon, it's citric acid for me. Ups the acidity enough to allow for safe canning of tomatoes without pressure canning.

Annie

With ripe summer tomatoes, I haven't had the need to add sugar or carrots to my tomato sauce. Similar to CindyMac's, I always roast the tomatoes first. Roasting concentrates the flavor of the tomatoes, so no added sweeteners are needed.

I make a Neapolitan sauce. Again, I start out by slow-roasting the tomatoes, along with a bulb of garlic. Once roasted, I put the tomatoes and the roasted garlic (squeeze the bulb to remove the roasted garlic cloves) into a high-speed blender until smooth.

For a chunky texture, I pulse it in a food processor, or use a masher

Then, I add the rest of the ingredients e.g. basil, oregano, a little red wine (opt.) pinch of red pepper flakes, etc.

Sol

Sol, do you remove the skins before pureeing? I don't puree and ended up fishing out the skins as the sauce sautéed.

Cindy, if I'm aiming for smooth, then I blend the roasted tomatoes in a V.M., skin and all, including some seeds. I'm not compulsive about de-seeding tomatoes, because the seeds also add flavor.

I've found that even without a high-powered blender, the skin of a roasted tomato peels right off. Not too much fun if I'm roasting 10 lbs. of them though.

if some skin remains, a food mill (with a fine disk) works magic. And then, there's the option of removing the skin prior to roasting tomatoes, but the thought of doing that dogs me.

Sol

I grow a lot of varieties of tomatoes and they vary wildly in tartness and flavor. For the best sauce, use the sauce types like roma. But if I am just using up stuff, I end up adding some flavor components for mellow. One I almost always end up using is wine. I also add a small can of V-8 juice to most of my tomato sauce based recipes. It has a lot of carrot in it.

Since you used citric acid to can the juice and then cooked it down, the citric acid became too concentrated. This doesn't happen with store-bought canned tomatoes because they are pressure canned and no citric acid is required.

biondanonima, perhaps that depends on the brand of tomato, but I just checked my pantry. My can of diced Meijer store brand tomatoes contains citric acid, as does the Ro-tel, which also contains calcium chloride. I also have a can of Hunt's tomato paste and it also contains citric acid. It's a very common ingredient in tomato products, so I'm not convinced that it's the culprit.

Annie