In that I am a relatively new neophyte in growing onions, garlic and shallots I am very interesested in the "Brix" scale, admittedly being unfamiliar with the idea. I googled it briefly and must have hit some very general sites. Flavor determination. Similar to the (heat) scovile units in peppers but for flavor intensity? How could this be determined and applied for/to garlic or shallots? What is (are) the test(s)? Who determines the final outcome and rating? Send me to the right website.
hortster

I believe that it refers to the amount of sugar in your crop. It would require a lab-type test. Probably not something for hobby growers, but could be a valuable sales tool for commercial growers IF the general public cared/understood.

hortster and still kris: Brix measures the amount of solids in the sap of produce -- specfic gravity if you like. Now, as still says, the solids are mostly sugars, but the interesting thing is that the more sugars there are the more mineral nutrients there are -- because they are what's necessary to produce the sugars. So, we have a practical measure of nutrition, and an indicator of whether you're doing things right. High Brix plants also withstand frost better and have longer shelf life, but that's a bonus. All you need to measure Brix is a garlic press to extract the sap, and a hand-held refractometer to measure it. They used to be quite expensive, but I bet you can find an inexpensive one on Ebay. And you need the poor-to-excellent Brix scales, which you can find in organic grower literature. My scales seem to have everything but garlic -- hence my enquiry. Regards, Peter.

It's not really a 'lab style' test, a refractometer can be had for about $40 and makes the measurement with about a drop of liquid from the specimen.

Garlic is less juicy than onions (particularly sweet onions), which would make measuring the brix more difficult. Some customers that want sweet onions (say for bloomin' onions at outback steakhouse) may want to specify a desired brix level in the onions they buy to ensure that the flavor of the dish is consistent, but garlic is almost always a minor ingredient and isn't expected to contribute much but garliciness to most dishes - it can be scaled to taste, and sugar can be added too if needed. It would be harder to add sugar to a bloomin' onion or onion rings and get a similar result to a sweet onion. I have seen people add a bit of sugar when caramelizing onions that were less than ideally sweet on the food network though.