How to Make the Healthiest Naturally Fermented Garlic

Enjoy this easy recipe for naturally fermented roasted garlic. You might be wondering how I naturally fermented garlic if I roasted it first. Find out in this blog post! I’ll teach you all my secrets to making the safest, healthy wild fermented garlic at home. This is a much safer technique than fermenting garlic in honey. You only need four ingredients and 4 weeks of fermentation. Use this fermented garlic in any recipe that calls for garlic.

Is it Safe to Ferment Garlic?

The fermentation method used in this recipe is perfectly safe! If you follow all of the recipe amounts and directions, your fermented garlic will be perfectly safe and healthy to eat. I check the pH and microbial composition for all of our fermentation recipe development experiments before publishing the recipe here. The final pH of fermented garlic should always be below 4.

How Do You Ferment Garlic?

My favorite way to ferment garlic is to roast it first, then ferment with fresh cabbage leaves, water, and a 2.5% total salt concentration. Since the garlic is roasted before fermenting, we must include another source of wild microorganisms to facilitate the fermentation process. That’s where cabbage leaves come in.

What is Fermented Garlic Good For?

Fermented garlic is great for you! As with any other ferment, you can eat too much, so don’t overdo it.

In the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Greece, Rome, Babylon, and China, garlic was a treatment for heart disease, joint pain, kidney stones, respiratory problems, rashes, diarrhea, constipation, headache, parasites, minor wounds, ulcers, and tumors. People have used garlic as a food and as a medicine since around 3000 B.C.

The beneficial compounds in garlic have effects on the human body. The potential benefits include reduced risk of cardiovascular diseases and cancer, along with better immune function. Allicin (diallyl-thiosulfinate), the most bioactive compound found in garlic is known for its antimicrobial (mainly antifungal) activity.

In our course at The Cultured Guru School of Fermentation I teach students that including fresh garlic in vegetable fermentation recipes is a great way to prevent yeast and fungal growth.

Is it Safe to Ferment Garlic in Honey?

No, I do not think it is safe. Let me explain. A study came out that said consuming garlic and honey together can have synergistic health benefits. But I’m not sure who first decided to “ferment” the two together. I can’t seem to find any historical information on fermenting garlic in honey. Or any published research on fermenting garlic in honey.

Garlic is a low acid plant food, and depending on the source, honey varies from low to high acidity. Honey has low water activity due to its high sugar content, and low water activity generally makes things safer… However, when you combine garlic and honey, the final water activity is variable. It depends on the ratio of garlic to honey used and other fermentation factors. From what I know about the microorganisms of fermentation, this combination may lead to yeast fermentation and pathogen growth, but I don’t believe the conditions are right for lacto-fermentation and safe pH development.

I’m too curious about honey garlic to stop there, though. So I plan to set up a few garlic honey experiments and study the microbial populations as they evolve over time. Only then will I know for sure if it is safe. Until then, I’m sticking to this verified safe and healthy fermented roasted garlic recipe.

How to Know When Garlic is Done Fermenting

The best and safest way to tell if your fermented garlic is done is to test the pH with pH strips. Just dip a strip into the fermentation liquid and make sure it is a pH of 4 or below.

Equipment You Need for This Recipe

Here’s all the supplies and equipment you will need to make this recipe:

• a kitchen scale
• sea salt
• water (tap works fine, but if your tap water is questionable use filtered)
• 1-quart glass mason jar with lid
• a glass fermentation weight fit to the mason jar
• pH strips

Fermentation Conditions

• 4 weeks of fermentation
• Room temperature (60-78° F)
• Final pH below 4
• Store in refrigerator after fermentation for up to 2 years.

How to Make the Healthiest Naturally Fermented Garlic

Print Recipe

Enjoy this easy recipe for naturally fermented roasted garlic. You might be wondering how I naturally fermented garlic if I roasted it first. Find out in this blog post! I’ll teach you all my secrets to making the safest, healthy wild fermented garlic at home. This is a much safer technique than fermenting garlic in honey. You only need four ingredients and 4 weeks of fermentation. Use this fermented garlic in any recipe that calls for garlic.

• Author: Kaitlynn Fenley
• Prep Time: 30 minutes
• Fermentation Time: 4 weeks
• Total Time: 672 hours 30 minutes
• Yield: 30 servings
• Category: Fermented Vegetables
• Method: Fermentation
• Diet: Vegan

Ingredients

• 400 grams garlic, peeled
• 50 grams fresh cabbage leaves
• 500 grams water
• 24 grams sea salt

Instructions

1. Preheat your oven to 450° F. Add the peeled garlic to a parchment paper-lined pan. *DO NOT USE ANY OIL*
2. Dry Roast the garlic in the oven for 10 minutes, gently toss the garlic with a spatula, then roast for another 10 minutes.
3. fill a large bowl with ice and water.
4. Immediately remove the garlic from the oven and scoop it all into the ice water bath. The cloves should still be firm, but lightly toasted on the outside. Some cloves might be softer than others, that’s fine.
5. Dissolve 24 grams of sea salt in 500 grams of water to create a brine.
6. In a clean mason jar add the 50 grams of fresh cabbage leaves.
7. Drain the garlic from the ice water bath. Add the 400 grams of garlic into the jar with the cabbage leaves.
8. Add all of the saltwater brine to the jar.
9. Place a fermentation weight in the jar to keep all of the garlic submerged. Place the mason jar lid on the jar and secure it in place.
10. Ferment for 4 weeks at room temperature. About 2 days into fermentation, you will notice a lot of bubbles. Set the jar in a glass dish to prevent messes. Every 24 hours loosen the lid to burp the jar and let the gas out. 
11. After 4 weeks of fermentation, check to make sure the pH is at or below 4. Then move to refrigerated storage.

Notes

• This recipe is sized to fit a 1-quart mason jar

Keywords: garlic, fermentation, fermented garlic

References

• Garlic: Health benefits and actions
• Allicin and Other Functional Active Components in Garlic: Health Benefits and Bioavailability

The post How to Make the Healthiest Naturally Fermented Garlic appeared first on Cultured Guru.

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By: Kaitlynn Fenley
Title: How to Make the Healthiest Naturally Fermented Garlic
Sourced From: cultured.guru/blog/how-to-make-the-healthiest-naturally-fermented-garlic?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=how-to-make-the-healthiest-naturally-fermented-garlic
Published Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2021 22:45:55 +0000