Garlic Lacto-ferment - Made Sept. 11/21

 

- 10 Bulbs of Garlic - cloves peeled and coarsely chopped

- 1 leaf of  green cabbage chopped finely

- 1 1/2 tsp Himalayan pink salt plus 1/4 tsp. added on top later

This is a another new thing for me... I usually add garlic to my ferments and often to my meals too,  However, I've had difficulty keeping the garlic I use for my meals, so I'm trying this... Maybe I will like this as well or better than fresh garlic... We'll see... I put the garlic in 2 batches into my Cuisinart "mini-prep" to make a fairly fine paste, like I do with my fermented ginger.  I then mixed it all together and packed it into one 750 ml jar,  firmly packed to a little less than 2" from the rim...   I could have used more garlic and filled the jar, but this is my first experimental try and I got tired peeling garlic cloves. Since it didn't fill the jar I could also have used slightly less salt, but this tastes just FINE so maybe this is the "right" amount of salt to use with garlic...I let it sit in my cupboard over my stove for 4 days before moving it to the fridge to stabilize and be eaten...  It isn't a lively ferment and since it is a paste the only sign of fermentation are bubbles appearing low down in the jar.  However, they are there and I expect to eat this slowly over a long time, so it's OK for it to ferment slowly.

After 2 days in my warm cupboard this is fermenting nicely... there are bubbles in the garlic paste and it has pushed up in the jar a little.  It is a beautiful light, spring green color from the cabbage leaf and it tastes VERY good, but not especially salty, so I think when I make this again I'll continue using a higher than normal amount of salt.  Like my ginger ferment, this is one I'm going to use slowly over a long time as the flavor is quite strong.  However, unlike the ginger there is NO extra water on top of the ferment to keep air away from the fermenting mixture.  Consequently, I've added a little less than 1/4 tsp. of salt sprinkled over the top as a precaution.... maybe unnecessary... but when I use it I'll take trom what is below and keep the extra salty part on top best I can and hopefully it will last a LONG time with no mold developing..  Since it is a VERY spicy paste, I intend to leave it in the warm cupboard for another day or two to make sure the bacterial culture is firmly established.