How To Ferment Garlic Cloves

'Tis the season to get cooking. With dinners, appetizers and charcuterie boards to prepare, you need all the help (and health) you can get. Garlic is a great way to season dishes and fermenting it only enhances the flavor and adds additional health benefits.

Here's just a couple of ways you can use fermented garlic:

• Blending it into hummus, dips pesto and butter
• Using in salad dressings 
• On charcuterie boards or as a side dish
• Adding to salads, chopped up

You can sub fermented garlic in recipes that call for regular garlic, but keep in mind cooking fermented foods reduces their nutritional value.  Try to find recipes that are cold so you can harness the full health benefits fermented garlic offers. 

Ingredients

• Peeled, raw garlic gloves from 13 - 14 heads 
• 4 cups non-chlorinated water 
• 2 tbsp coarse, non-iodized salt 

Tools

• 1-quart wide mouth Mason jar with band
• Masontops Pickle Pipe, Wide Mouth
• Masontops Pickle Pebble, Wide Mouth 

Instructions

1. Move the garlic cloves into a Mason jar, packing them with as little space as possible, until there is 1.75" headspace. 
2. Mix your salt and water in a measuring cup, ensuring the salt properly dissolves, and pour it over your garlic cloves until they are completely submerged and there is still 1" headspace.
3. Place your Pickle Pebble on top of the garlic cloves so they are weighted down below the brine.
4. Add your Pickle Pipe, screw on a band, and leave it to ferment for 2 - 4 weeks in a dark, cool, cupboard or other space. 

We recommend tasting the cloves along the way (bring some gum) to ensure they stop fermenting at your preferred taste. Sometimes garlic turns blue while fermenting: don't be alarmed, this is very common and it's still safe to eat. If you're not cooking with them right away, pop a Tough Top on them and put them in the fridge to stop the fermentation. 

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