Garlic presses

[Cellar_Rat]

I have 5lbs of garlic and I am going to use Wine No1 recipe. But can anyone recommend a good garlic press - seems easy enough eh!
I have just spent about 45 mins surfing the net to little avail.

Must be easy to clean and strong - I have broken 4 so far. I think I have too much grip - either the handle bends or the bottom gets pushed out (holey bit).

HELP !

[billybuntus]

Your going to make Garlic wine?

[David]

I grow several hundred bulbs of garlic every year, quite a few of which are large hardnecks:



and I use a Zyliss press http://www.lakeland.co.uk/F/product/6370?src=gfeed (got ours at T.K. Maxx for half the Lakeland price, although the design seems slightly different on the new models) but sometimes need to cut the bigger (especially elephant garlic) cloves into pieces first:

[NorthernWiner]

I have a Zyliss press, too. It's a pretty sturdy little piece of kitchenware.

[Cellar_Rat]

thanks chaps..

[billybuntus]

But seriously, Garlic Wine? I can't imagine that being even remotely nice in wine?

[fatbloke]

The other suggestion, would be to peel the garlic, get some of whatever base liquid is used and then put some of the base liquid and peeled garlic into a liquidiser and blitz it that way.

It'll certainly get the job done enough to make a batch.....


Garlic wine, I'd add some hot chilli to that... Yum...

regards

jtfb

[David]

But seriously, Garlic Wine? I can't imagine that being even remotely nice in wine?

Sounds like a useful way of preserving garlic for use in marinades and salad dressing. I freeze meals with garlic in, dehrydrate & powder it, and mix chopped garlic with butter, lay on clingfilm and roll into long sausages for freezing/cutting to length as required, but there always seem to be a gap before the green garlic is ready.

But I'd be really interested in hearing how this goes, especially how much aroma is blown out during fermentation - our electric dehydrator has to go in the shed for processing garlic!

[Cellar_Rat]

David,

You an I are on the same page...

I have a lot of v dry white wine and I am thinking on pickling them. The reason to crush some was to quickly saturate the wine, and thus (school boy chemistry here) prevent too much flavour leaking from the whole pickled ones.

When they a brined they seem to loose all flavour.

The white wine can also then be used for cooking...

[lockwood1956]

I would add the Garlic very very late in the fermentation, possibly even when ferment had finished, and allow the alcohol to extract the aromas and flavours.

I have had great success with late fruit additions, the finished wine being much friuitier.

I ran an experiment with the same ingredients, one pulp fermented and one that had the fruit added at SG 1.010, the late fruit addition one was a far superior wine and much fruitier. I used it to deliver a talk on it at Ponte wine circle last month, everyone agreed the late fruit wine wasa better

Fairly sure this would work really well with garlic too.

regards
Bob

[modofodo]

After breaking numerous cheap garlic crushers we invested in a Stellar one - I think it is this one:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stellar-Gadgets-Garlic-Press/dp/B000LCW6YU/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1291641788&sr=8-4

It's much more sturdy than the others we have demolished.

[Cellar_Rat]

I thought for aminute we had the same one.

I watched a YouTubey that reviewed loads of them and then settled on the Steller http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stellar-Self...1656491&sr=1-4

[Cellar_Rat]

I grow several hundred bulbs of garlic every year, quite a few of which are large hardnecks:

I am getting the garlic bug here - do you know where I can buy seed garlic please? I understand that they grow well in a sandy sole too?

[NorthernWiner]

No need for seed. All you have to do is take a head of the type of garlic you want to propogate, break it apart into separate cloves and plant them in late Autumn. Just like planting tulip bulbs really.

Garlic is very easy to grow. I've had good luck with it, even in the coldest of winters.

EDIT: Helpful link: http://www.garlic-central.com/garlic-growing.html

[David]

I am getting the garlic bug here - do you know where I can buy seed garlic please? I understand that they grow well in a sandy sole too?

I've been growing garlic for around 20 years and saving cloves year after year until the dreaded white rot gets them, then start again with some bought cloves planted in new ground.

I'm currently growing Music, a hardneck porcelain garlic, from cloves saved from bulbs grown from seed garlic (bulbs/cloves are known as 'seed garlic', but garlic doesn't produce seeds) bought last year from The Really Garlicky Company http://www.reallygarlicky.co.uk/garlic (and I've always gone for an amount where the postage has been free), saved Christo, and saved Elephant Garlic. I usually also grow at least another overwintering variety (but that white rot got both my Germidour & Thermidrome), and plant some others in very early spring to stagger the harvest a bit.

As I have clay soil I now grow in raised beds filled with a mixture of soil imported from where alliums haven't been grown in living memory, spent potting compost, well rotted manure and sand. Some of the manure is used as a mulch after planting and I'll give then a feed no later than early Spring.

You say you're "getting the bug", but OH describes my growing as more like an obsession for me, together with tomatoes, giant marrows and perhaps some other stuff we grow on approaching ¾ of an acre.

P.S. Just remembered this site: http://www.garlicworld.co.uk/seednews.html