Sigh, I MAY regret this...

I LOVE black garlic but there are two issues.
1) It is expensive.
2) A unit to make it yourself is a minimum of $100.00.

Fortunately there is another way if you have a rice cooker. I have found several links that state that you can make your own black garlic using a rice cooker set at the "keep warm" setting. Most rice cookers will not have a button for warm but will default to this setting when plugged in. To test just plug in your rice cooker and see if a keep warm light comes on. If it does all is good.

So we now have a usable rice cooker set to keep warm. Just throw in bulbs of fresh garlic and let the rice cooker go for about three weeks and you should have proper black garlic. You cannot do this with a dehydrator as it removes the humidity that is needed for the process. I intend to try this.

So why may I regret? This method is reported to put out a LOT of odor. One report said that it is like living inside of a clove of garlic.

As a side note the stuff is difficult to deal with as it is very gummy and will stain your fingers black if handled. I have found the solution. Just cut off one end of a clove and squeeze out the black garlic like the clove is a tube of toothpaste.

As another side note black garlic is awesome when used with peas and pearl onions. It also adds a GREAT flavor to chicken or pork. To be honest I haven't tried with beef.

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Experiment failed. Well not totally but mostly. The keep warm setting on my rice cooker is just too warm. After five days I ended up with some cloves of actual black garlic and others that were sort of like roasted garlic. The problem is that the cloves were starting to dehydrate and get hard due to the rice cooker temp being too high.

Don't know that I will actually due this but it isn't ruled out as it would also help with my 2 gallon slow cooker that gets hotter than I'd like for some applications. I could make a simple box with a cut in half extension cord and a dimmer switch that would allow me to 'fine tune' the temperature of both the rice cooker and slow cooker. Doubt that I'll actually build such a box but it might be interesting...

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After further thought I think the partial failure of my experiment just might be that I didn't follow instructions. I was worried about staining the bottom of my rice cooker so put a layer of damp paper towels on the bottom. This was not part of the instructions.

I think it possible that, once the paper towels dried out, they acted like a sponge drawing the moisture out of the garlic. Once I use what I have I will try this again. Even though my first experiment was not totally good I still ended up with usable processed garlic for a lot less than the cost of buying it already done from my local grocery store. I paid $1.38 for two bulbs of garlic and ended up with about 1.5 bulbs usable. Compare that with the $5.00 or $6.00 cost of a bulb already done in a store I am still ahead.

Other than that it is just fun for me to experiment with food.

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