An easy Garlic Infusion to always have on hand

I walked down to the basement this week to grab something from the fridge. I was rummaging through things like a homemade vitamin C from rose hips and other concoctions and in the corner of my eye I caught sight of an old garlic infusion I made in apple cider vinegar.

It reminded me that I took these photos last summer and never shared it. And it was such a beautiful success!

I really love garlic. It’s so warm and the way it smells when you add just a little bit of heat to it in oil is delightful to all my senses. But my kids do not feel the same. So when they catch a case of the sniffles or show signs of a UTI, when I would turn to swallowing some garlic to aid my body’s natural defenses, my kids spit it right back out.

However, if I infuse the garlic into ACV, they typically take it. {especially if I mix that spoonful with a bit of honey}.

I typically start off by breaking up my garlic cloves and digging my fingernail into the bottom of each peeling away the paper-like skin.

Related: How to intuitively make and brew homemade fire cider

Then I soak them briefly in water to help get all the little bits of remaining skin off and to ensure that there is no lingering dirt from my garden.

I pack them into a quart size jar with a jug of apple cider vinegar waiting nearby and a fermenting weight on hand. I typically try to do two full bulbs of garlic with one 32 ounce bottle of Apple Cider vinegar {because I can easily get them at ALDI if I don’t have a larger jug on hand}.

Either the peeled and sliced garlic cloves submerged, I typically place the weight on them and then put a barrier between my metal canning lid and the vinegar to not let the ACV corrode the lid or ring.

Most of the time I let my infusions sit for at least 4 weeks. Every once in awhile I will go longer. then I strain the garlic pieces out, composting them, and keep the infused ACV on hand in the fridge. This time, I actually funneled it back into an old small apple cider vinegar bottle that I took the spout off of. I used this funnel and strainer:

It is the perfect tool for the job and I use it for many of my herbal infusions as the mesh netting is so fine that it does a very nice job.

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