BLACK GARLIC...

[albertajune]

I'm sure that it will turn out as you want it Manda. I love elephant garlic, although I believe it's not a true garlic. The bulbs to buy for planting are quite expensive but a lovely mild flavour when cooked with and certainly worth growing.

I must ask. Do you have somewhere other than the kitchen to do things like curing and smoking etc. When I read what you are doing, I sometimes think that I would like to have a go, but have nowhere to do these things. I can envisage you in a nice little out house with sausages and ham hanging up. Not forgetting the cheese being made. I do remember you saying that the garlic scented the house, so I'm probably wrong.

[manda]

I did do the garlic in the laundry this time...the house had a very pungent garlic odour LOL!!! We do have a large shed that we can do this in though (hence I am thinking about buying a benchtop size cooker so I won't have to go down every day to reset it (the warm cycle on the rice cooker had to be set every 24 hours) ...and the added advantage will be the house won't smell.

We do things like Biltong in the big shed (it's bigger than our house LOL!!) The top building is the shed and sleep out , the middle building is our house, the bottom is the barn ..it's kind of an all purpose place and I've got a smaller place to store things like jams and preserves which stays nice and cool even in summer which is on the back of the big shed facing the house.

Hot and cold smoking we do outside ...we've got a hot smoker which can be used alone of in the BBQ for bigger things and we've converted a wine barrel into a cold smoker.

Some things aren't necessarily pretty but they do the job....



Actually to be fair.... I think the house is pretty and the big shed is hidden by lots of planting so it isn't obviously the big concrete building that it is


The "cold smoker" barrel is the one at the front ...it will at some time get a posher lid


I hope I haven't completely destroyed your images

[albertajune]

All I have to say Manda.

[p.penn]

I guess you could put some in you dehydrator, then crumble/powder it for the store cupboard too.

[manda]

I hadn't thought of doing that ..but I might just give that a go Helen

[saint-spoon]

just a thought... would an incubator be warm enough?

[manda]

I don't know if you would be able to have it warm enough...they're usually around the 90 - 102 deg F mark and you need 140-150F.
Good idea though.