They need to be cool, dark and dry. Bags would tend to retain moisture and encourage mold

I keep mine in a dry room with good air circulation, stems and roots sniped off. It gets pretty bright in there from lots of windows, , but I don't know if light is that much of a factor. I know temperature is, so this room stays, all winter long, between 45º coldest to 80º warmest, the fluctuation depending on solar heat gain.

I keep them in both 1 cubic foot cardboard boxes with slots in the sides I saved from a big order of daffodil bulbs, or in those mesh bags that hold 5 lbs of oranges, hanging from some spot that allows maximum air circulation.

They last pretty well, all of them 10 months, and many over a year. Some will start to sprout in March, some don't, and I have no clue why.

Like everything else in gardening, there are lots of ways to do this. My preferred method is basic and I typically use the last of my stored 160 garlic within days of harvesting the new crop.

1. Harvest and hang, bulb up, in the basement with a fan running and a dehumidifier set to auto-run at 50%-60% rh.

2. After two weeks (approximately), pull the garlic down, cut off the stems (to about 1"-2"), cut off the roots (dirt is dry and will no longer cling, so this is messy), wipe off particularly dirty layers of paper.

3. Put garlic into mesh bags like the ones onions or lemons often come in from the supermarket. Hang these from the basement ceiling in a dark area. Do not overstuff the bags as you want as much air flow as possible, but I no longer run the fan.

Good luck!

Sounds like a number of methods work for folks.

I cure on screens in a shady garage with the windows open for two weeks, then braid and hang in an upstairs open room. I don't snip anything off or rub off any of the dirty layers of paper -- this just saves some work. My basement is humid, and I know that dry is important, so I don't use the basement for alliums (I did put onions there one year -- they sprouted).

Like david, I don't worry about the light factor -- just work at air circulation and dry. Then in the spring I move them to a dark closet with the onions to discourage sprouting. I still have perfectly good garlic from last year -- overlapping with the new garlic.

If you're having trouble with sprouting, you might try a batch in an upstairs room this year and see if it does better than the basement batch. Don't know if your basement is humid, but most basements are.