Preserving Garlic

[Alastair]

Can anyone explain the best way to preserve and keep Garlic. I have had a bumper crop again this year. Last year I tried putting the peeled cloves in oil but they went to a soggy, discolured mush quite quickly! Do the cloves need to be blanched beforehand?

At the moment they are being dried, which should be complete by the weekend. Can anyone explain how to plait garlic and onions successfully.

All help gratefully received!!!!!

[zazen999]

Putting garlic in oil can breed botulism, so I'd research it first before you try again.

I just hang mine up, use the separated cloves from bulbs that were a bit ropey first and just use a clove at a time. All mine last year survived like this for months and some started sprouting around April, so I chucked those and started using the stuff in the ground as green garlic. All mine that are good solid bulbs are strung up and in the greenhouse drying out.

Look on the allium sticky thread for plaiting garlic, I posted the links a few days back - or do a search as Manda posted some links in a thread a while back

[Two_Sheds]

Can anyone explain the best way to ...keep Garlic.

like this:

[pdblake]

I just hang mine up, use the separated cloves from bulbs that were a bit ropey first and just use a clove at a time. All mine last year survived like this for months and some started sprouting around April, so I chucked those and started using the stuff in the ground as green garlic. All mine that are good solid bulbs are strung up and in the greenhouse drying out.

I do the very same. They store so well in fact that I'm still eating the very last of last year's even though I've just harvested some of this years.

I use the worst first and save the very best to plant as next year's crop. I usually hang them in small bunches in the shed (which stinks to high heaven this time of year)

[zazen999]

I found in my trial that the smallest clove made the biggest final bulb, so this year I'm going to choose 5 baby cloves and 5 big beefy cloves, weigh them before and after to see if they do the same thing again....going in on the shortest day and taking out on the longest day.

[rustylady]

Can anyone explain the best way to preserve and keep Garlic. I have had a bumper crop again this year.

Lucky you - mine were rubbish. What sort did you grow, when did you plant, - tell me your secrets please

[NOG]

I hang Mine up....and use them like that.

[Alison]

It's also nice pickled. Basically plunge garlic for a minute into boiling water for a minute. Remove from water, drain and dry. Break into cloves and peel then pack into warm, steralised jars. Add fennel seeds, peppercorns and bay leaves as you go. Boil up vinegar for a couple of minutes (I prefer either white wine or cider) with sugar (50g to each 200ml vinegar) and a pinch of saffron. Pour hot vinegar over garlic and seal jars. Should last about a year (apparently) but haven't kept any that long so wouldn't know.

[Woofster]

You can get garlic that has been preserved in brine. At my favourite pub they serve olives and garlic as a snack and the garlic appears to be pickled in brine. Does anybody have any experience of this as I would love to preserve and consume some of my garlic this way.

[Alastair]

Lucky you - mine were rubbish. What sort did you grow, when did you plant, - tell me your secrets please

Hi. Well theres no secret really! All I did was buy the garlic bulbs from The Garlic Farm on the Isle of Wight last October (they sell a selection pack of several different types), which I planted on the shortest day. With the exception of the odd hoeing I did nothing else to them until I pulled them up in June/July.

Last year I covered the bulbs with a layer of straw, but there was no appreciable difference in the yield of the crop, although with the straw mulch I had less work as there was no need to hoe!!

Unless you have a large area of space available (or [I]really[I]love garlic), cosider sharing your purchase from The Garlic Farm with a friend, as the selection pack is I feel rather larger than one person could want!

Good luck for next year!!

[Stacey Steve]

A lot of our galic is minced and bottled up using white wine vinegar. Keeps family and friends supplied all year round.

If you want to plait up garlic or onions, then use string in with the leaves and it stops the whole thing accidentially falling to bits if someone pulls at the plait while it's hanging up.

[Polly Fouracre]

I did pickled garlic a few years ago. Followed Oded Schwartz recipe to the letter and was pleased. A week later I looked at them and they had turned a pretty but worrying shade of turquoise. I couldn't find a reason or a cure for it so binned them.
Any suggestions?

[Stacey Steve]

Our first attempt at pickled garlic also ended up with the contents a lovely flirescent green colour and it turned out to be the vonegar was reacting with the metal lid.

[gojiberry]

Have had a good crop of garlic this year, some were planted last Oct and some early this year. Most of it looks as if it will store but some ( may have been a soft neck) had some really plump cloves but had all split open so wouldn't store. Have just peeled them and put them in vinegar and put into the fridge. According to an American site it will keep in vinegar in a fridge for five years and get better as time goes on. You can also leave in vinegar for 2 weeks and then transfer to soy sauce and it will then keep indefinitely. Should not think for one moment that any preserved garlic will be around longer than a couple of months in our house. Don't try storing in oil as it is potentially highly dangerous.

Ian

[Hilary B]

The Garlic Farm was featured on Countryfile this week. Apparently if you store garlic in 'Mediterranean' conditions it doesn't sprout. I missed part of the item, but he seemed to be saying that if dry enough, garlic keeps better a bit warm, rather than cold. It seems that in the Mediterranean climate it starts to grow when the weather is cool......
Like I said, I missed part of the item, but it might be worth seeing whether it is available online as a repeat.