I Shook a Jar of Pasta Sauce and it Exploded!

Factual Questions
1

I just made an Italian pasta dish. As I was preparing to dispense the marinara sauce, I shook the jar to thoroughly mix the contents. This is a jar that I had opened previously and then returned capped to the refrigerator. Upon re-opening the jar moments ago, there was a large “pop!” and sauce was ejected everywhere. I’m glad I was wearing ratty clothes at the time because the shirt I was wearing will forever look it has blood-stains.

Is there some kind of gas build-up in tomato sauces?

2

Gas builds up if it spoils. It was probably rotten. How long was it between when you opened it and reopened it?

3

It could have been pressure from the air heating in the jar and nothing to do with spoilage.

4

Yeah, I was also going to suggest it might have been caused by temperature instead of spoilage. Consider this sequence of events:

  1. You put the jar in the fridge. As the contents cooled, the pressure inside dropped.
  2. Because you resealed the jar, it was no longer completely airtight. Over a few days air trickled in under the lid until the pressure was equalized.
  3. You took the jar out of the fridge and set it on the counter. As it warmed up, the pressure inside increased.
  4. If you left it there long enough, the air would eventually trickle out under the lid and the pressure would equalize again.
  5. But you didn’t leave it long enough. You opened it, so all that pressurized air rushed out at once.
  6. And since you had shaken the jar, a lot of the air was trapping in bubbles inside the sauce. As the air expanded the sauce got pushed out of the jar.
5

it’s microbial farts i would guess

6

I’m thinking temperature difference too. I had the exact same thing happen with a ketchup bottle that had been in the back of the fridge, loud pop and huge mess included. There was nothing at all wrong with the contents aside from being, well, aside the bottle, however.

7

I’ve had that almost happen a lot to things that by no sane reason should act like its carbonated. I’ve opened up the cabbage kimchi jars and seen little bubbles come up as if for air. I just take it as some kind of mild fermenting process.

Either that or somebody booby trapped your pasta sauce. Do you have any reason for someone to assassinate you? :smiley:

8

It’s more likely sauce clinging by the top near the point where decompression first would occur caused the spraying rather than the sauce was effervescent like champagne.

9

You’re all missing the obvious: terrorist IESDs (improvised explosive sauce devices).

Be drenched, infidel!!

10

What’s really bad is when you get out the mustard, and forget that the last time you used it was at a picnic up in the mountains.

11

Toothpaste, too. :smiley:

12

You made me think of the movie with the exploding portable toilet in the RV when they went up into the mountains. I don’t know what movie it was, but I remember the woman was a mess.

13

Pasta Lottagas?

14

Ah, yes, of course, it was the other way around: The mustard exploded while up on the mountain, not after.

15

I like the microbial farts image… I must use it! :smiley:

16

Poot-anesca

17

Wait a minute…you didn’t happen to try and teleport your jar of pasta sauce using the digital conveyor, did you? I tried that once and it turned inside out and exploded!

18

If you recall the old movie “The Matchmaker” with Shirley Booth, Anthony Perkins and Shirley MacLaine (which was later made into the musical "Hello Dolly), the two main characters got out of work by taking canned tomatoes and lighting candles beneath the cans. This caused the cans to explode.

Just an observation :slight_smile: and now back to your regularly scheduled thread