Help please - My Frozen Pea Pods went bad - HOW???

[solargeek]

I need some help here. I had a huge bounty of edible pea pods (we call them sugar snap pea pods or "chinese peapods"). So I looked online and it said to blanch for 30 seconds, then chill in water, then pat dry and freeze (we have deep freeze).

I carefully did all that with about 1/2 the peapods; but the 2nd half, I just rinsed and froze.

Today, I was hungry for spring and so defrosted a small bag of the blanced for dinner. Being excited, I popped one in my mouth after it defrosted.

IT TASTED FIZZY AND SOUR AND JUST REALLY WRONG. THE OTHERS HAD BUBBLES on them when I examined them.

What could have caused this? I have had the unblanched and they were fine. I also did peppers the same way and they were fine.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

[farmchix]

How did you defrost? Did you freeze in one big ole bag of awesomeness, or did you lay them out kind of flat to freeze. One thing food processors have learned over the years is IQF - Individually quick frozen. Take your peas, for instance....if they were to put them in bags and freeze the bags, it would take the inner part of the bags weeks (sometimes) to freeze. In those weeks, bacteria and all other sorts of germiness starts to grow.

When I want to freeze anything, I lay out a flat sheet pan of product into the freezer and bag it once it has frozen.

Don't know if I did a good job explaining...

[solargeek]

I froze flat in sandwich bags (so small amounts) on an aluminum tray in the deep freeze. They seemed frozen solid but I will try your suggestion next time! Thanks so much and your explanation was great.

Funny, I freeze fruit that way but since I had blanched these, I just thought it would be ok. Of course I cooled them before they went in any bag.

[Deleted]

Years ago when I tried freezing my extra pods, I blanched them like you did and I found mine to have a mushy texture when defrosted. Like yours, they were froze in small amounts, blanched and cooled quickly. I didn't have any problems with fizziness however. I haven't tried freezing them since but if I did it again I don't think I'd blanch them.