Squash it with the flat of a knife pressed firmly with the ball of your hand, and when you squeeze out it pops, minus skin!

There is a nifty gadget that's basically a ribbed silicone or rubber-like tube with slanted ends (think of a giant inside-out piece of penne pasta.)

I tried it at the store and it was super quick and easy. You put the clove into and roll it around on the counter, and apply light pressure as you roll, and inside the tube the garlic is mysteriously peeled. They sell them at a specialty kitchen store up here, but I bet it's available at Crate and Barrel.

It seemed to me that you could do more than one clove at a time and your hands don't touch it. And it was fast.

Since I was too cheap to buy the gadget in question, I use the knife as Daisy suggests - It's a huge step up from doing it with your fingernails :-) but I still have to pick off some of the thin stuff.

It's just now occurring to me that I probably don't need to cut the stem end off the garlic if I'm using it in pickling. I need to get one of those things!

You can blanch the garlic for about 30 seconds in boiling water; that helps loosen the peel but the garlic will have been slightly cooked, so there is a change in taste.

There used to be a garlic company online (dead link now or I'd provide it) which explained a compressed-air system for large amounts. This assumes, of course, that you have an air compressor (tank and hose).

Basically you need a plastic jug or jar with a lid. Not a large mouth but one large enough to fit the largest cloves through. Drill a 1/4" hole in the lid. Drill 1/2" holes in the bottom of the jug. Dump in the unpeeled cloves, screw on the lid, turn the bottle upside down and blast a good shot of air with the hose into the 1/4" hole. You'll end up with a mixture of cloves and peels, with a lot of the sticky peels lining the walls of the container.

To rinse and further separate, shoot a stream of water down the neck. The peels and water flow out the 1/2" holes in the bottom.

I haven't tried this myself, but I'd give it a shot if I were doing really big amounts of garlic.

P.S. This struck me as humorous. DakotaGarlic.com said don't go down to the local gas station and try the hose used for pumping tires. The pressure isn't strong enough. I assume someone discovered that through observation.

Carol

I have one of those little tubes. They are great and fast. Probably picked mine up at a grocery store, but they sell them lots of places.

If you don't have the rubber tube, a rubber jar opener works the same. You just have to kinda roll the garlic up in it. Then roll it around while putting a little pressure on it. My father's company gives them away. I could mail you one.
Melly

Subcontract the work out to a significant other that has more patience.

Malon, Are you making your wife peel garlic???
Shame on you!!
hee hee

For me, and my pickles garlic, I use a big 3 pound jar thats already peeled. These are sold at Costco. They just get the dark root end cut off and then loaded into jars, filled with a boiling vinegar salt brine, capped and processed for just 5 minutes. If your wanting to peel it, usually its a bit easier if the cloves are seperated a few days earlier and then the skins seem to dry out more, making for easier removal. That peeling tool might work, but because garlic bulbs have many different sized cloves, sometimes you do need to handle each a bit differently.