This year I'm fermenting my wild garlic.

This year I’m fermenting my wild garlic. I won’t do a long ferment, just enough to stop it going bad in the fridge too quickly, which has been a concern in the past. I used to make pesto with cheese and pumpkin seeds, then just added salt and oil to finely ground wild garlic and froze.

Making this for a ferment is a very simple process. Wash, squeeze dry, shred (I used a mixer, but it won’t take long by hand), weigh. Once you have a weight, weigh 2% salt. 1kg garlic = 20g salt. Pour about half the salt over the top, mix in, squeezing with your hands. The main pic is at this stage. Add the rest of the salt, repeat the mixing and squeezing. Wait half an hour or so, mix and squeeze. There should be quite a lot of liquid drawn out of the plants at this point. Here, you can add it to your usual fermenting pot, I’ve got a 4 litre or so Korean style pot. Press it in until the liquid seeps through on the surface. Weigh down and leave for 5-10 days.

When ready, you could freeze smaller portions here, but I think it should be good in the fridge for 3 months or so. Freezing will likely kill any microbes. If that’s not an issue, go for it. I may freeze 50-60% of this as there’s around 3kg. Once thawed, it’ll have the same preservative properties as fermented, just less healthy microbes.