How to Make Lacto Fermented Garlic Cloves

sealed jar filled with garlic cloves salt and water

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There are many ways to store garlic for later use. It can be hung in a cool dry location, mashed and mixed with vinegar, slowly fermented into black garlic or pickled with vinegar but by lacto-fermenting them you get a chance to experience one of the most reliable, safe and delicious ways of garlic preservation.

Now I know we no longer have to worry about preserving our harvest for later use in today’s world of global trade but preservation is only a small part of why lacto-fermented garlic is so great. As the garlic ferments it mellows the flavor of the garlic, adds a tangy taste and improves its digestibility (for those who have trouble with garlic sauces).

Equipment:

A cutting board, kitchen knife scale and swing top jar

Cutting board
Kitchen knife
Fermenting jar
Kitchen scale

Ingredients:

a pitcher of water, a bowl of galic heads and a container of salt sitting on a cutting board

Enough garlic to fill the fermenting jar
Salt
Filtered water

Instructions:

Separate garlic cloves

A pile of garlic cloves still in their husks

Trim end and peel

closeup of garlic cloves whith end trimmed

Place jar on scale and tair it

Add peeled garlic cloves to jar

swing topped jar on scale filled with garlic cloves

Add filtered water to just cover the garlic cloves (leave some headroom)

jar filled with garlic cloves and water sitting on a scale

Calculate 2-3% by weight of salt

502g X .02 = 10.4g

Add desired amount of salt by weight

Seal the jar

Place jar in a cool dark location

jar of fermenting garlic cloves in a cupboard

Burp the jar daily until no bubbles appear
Ferment at least 2 weeks
Move to cold storage once desired fermentation level is reached

Note:

Many recipes will require a 3-5% water brine to be used as the liquid to submerge the garlic cloves. This is a very inaccurate method of calculating salt concentration as the volume of water added to a jar varies with how many cloves are packed into the jar. Instead by weighing the total volume of the jar the correct amount of salt can be added to ensure your garlic will not spoil.

Michael Grant

Mike has been an enthusiast of fermentation for over ten years. With humble beginnings of making kombucha for himself to the intricacies of making miso, vinegar and kefir. He makes a wide variety of fermented foods and drinks for his own consumption and family and friends. Being a serial learner he began experimenting with a wide variety of fermented products and learning widely from books, online from content and scientific studies about fermentation, its health benefits, how to use fermented food products in everyday life and the various techniques used to produce them both traditionally and commercially. With a focus on producing his own fermented products in an urban environment with little access to garden space he began Urban Fermentation to help others who want to get the benefits of fermentation in their lives. He provides a wide variety of content covering fermented drinks like kombucha and water kefir, milk kefir and yogurt, vinegar production and lacto-fermentation such as pickles, sauerkraut for those who have to rely on others for food production. With an insatiable hunger to know more about fermentation from all nations and cultures he also has learned to make natto, miso and soy sauce, with more to come as the body of knowledge about fermentation is constantly expanding and becoming more popular as time passes.

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