"What do you usually do with your ripening tomatoes that look to be rotting in sections?"

It depends on how much "rot" there is. Skin cracks don't bother me unless they are clearly moldy and much of stink bug damage can be peeled off, but worms and squirrel damage gets pitched quickly. Never even makes it to the house. They ate part of it - I won't.

Technically we are advised against processing diseased fruit because of the higher mold and bacterial counts they contain and the off-flavors they can produce.

Personally I don't have a problem cutting out a few bad spots here and there and using the rest but if it is more than say 1/8 of the fruit I pitch the whole thing. Molds can be very invasive even if you can't see them so unless I can be very sure that what remains is high quality it goes to the compost. It just isn't worth the time and energy for me to waste on what will possibly be a poor end product.

There is an old adage - "junk into the jar (or freezer in this case) equals junk out". ;-) Keep in mind that freezing doesn't kill bacteria like pressure canning does so if freezing only higher quality would be wanted in my house.

Just my opinion.

Dave

Thanks Dave!

Feed them to the chickens, coupe!!

I cut out cracks and small damage, along with the stem, then cut up the pieces into my crock pot, filling it right to the top. I can cook them 4 to 5 hours on High, or overnight on low. If I don't stir the tomatoes at all, I can remove a good deal of the extra water, carefully with the ladle, which I'll save for soups or to cook rice, etc. I process the mass through a sieve to remove the skins and seeds, returning it to the crock pot on High - once back up to simmering, I process the tomato sauce. Works great.