Lacto-Fermented Garlic Cloves

Garlic added to any dish adds such a strong, pungent flavor, especially when raw. But sometimes that heat is a bit too much in the raw. Lacto-fermenting it is one way to enjoy garlic with all of the enzymes and nutrients intact (raw) but without all of the heat.

You see, Lacto-fermenting garlic mellows it to a cross between raw and roasted garlic. And because it is simply brined whole cloves it is super easy to do. The most work you’ll be doing is peeling the garlic.

To peel the garlic you have a few options:

Roast it in a low oven, around 200 degrees, until the skins loosen a bit.

Blanch them in boiling water and then shock them in ice water to loosen the skins.

Just go ahead and peel them to keep them 100% raw. (I prefer this method)

Once you’ve peeled the garlic it’s as simple as mixing all the ingredients and culturing.

Ingredients:

One quart mason jar

Approximately 12-14 heads of Garlic

A brine of 1-quart spring or filtered water + 2 tablespoons Sea Salt. (Real Salt or Celtic)

Click here for my easy, cheap Airlock System to fit your mason jar as seen below

Directions:

1. Peel garlic as indicated above. Fill a quart jar within 1” of the top with the garlic cloves.

2. Pour brine over garlic cloves. Make sure the cloves stay under the brine, I like to use fermentation glass weights to keep everything under, and cap with airlock. 

3. Allow fermenting for 4 weeks before moving to cold storage. The longer these sit-in

cold storage the more delicious they get!