How To Make Homegrown Garlic Powder
Did you grow a million zillion heads of garlic this year? No? Just me?
Well, at least I won’t have any vampire problems. And thankfully both my husband and I love garlic. I eat it with practically every meal. Not to mention garlic has a lot of health benefits, including supporting a healthy immune system.
If you are new to growing garlic and you live in a climate that has cold winters, check out this previously published article that walks you through the best practices.
This year I grew four different varieties of garlic, inluding both hardneck and softneck types. Hardneck varieties are known to perform better in our cold, harsh winters, so the majority of my crop was hardneck. But, a trade-off is that hardneck garlic does not store as well long term.
Say whaaaat? I had fellow garlic growers tell me that their hardneck garlic lasted only a few months in their pantry. Seeing as though I had over 75 hardneck plants in the ground, I decided to preserve them differently than my softneck varieties. I would dry them and grind them into homemade, homegrown garlic powder.
Let me just tell you right now: homegrown garlic powder is amazing and extremely potent. Like, wow.
How to make garlic powder – it is really this easy!
After harvesting all of your beautiful heads and properly curing them, peel and slice the garlic cloves thinly. Try to keep them as uniform as possible so they will dry evenly.
*Pro tip: keep a moist hand towel nearby as you are peeling and cutting them. Fresh garlic is very sticky!
Lay the slices flat on dehydrator tray without overlapping or touching. Our dehydrator isn’t anything fancy like this one that I have my eye on, but it gets the job done. Eventually. You can’t change the temperature on it. It also overheats. But it still works! I run it during the day, then turn it off and bring it in at night to keep critters out. It took approximately 2 days with this on/off again method until my garlic was completely dry.
Oh, and in case you haven’t figured it out yet – you’ll want to do this process outside.
When you are checking for “doneness”, there is one thing you should be looking for. No, not the color. Check for the snap. If the pieces bend, they’re not ready and won’t store well. If they cleanly and completely snap when you attempt to break them, then on to the next step!
Transfer the pieces to blender. Put any that bend instead of snap back into the dehydrator for longer. Again, they will not store well, and you run the risk of ruining your whole batch if you grind any up that aren’t completely dry! Pulse the pieces into a powder. Store them in cool, dry place in an airtight container. We have been holding onto old spice jars for this very occasion.
Are you ready to taste the most potent, delicious and cheap garlic powder you’ll ever have?! If you have some extra garlic from your harvest, or some that maybe don’t look super beautiful, what are you waiting for? Grind them up! Then come back and let me know how it went for you. Hopefully you have a better dehydrator than I do. 😉
Happy Growing,
Becca
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