Nice gift Dutch! If I need to peel a lot of garlic, like when I am dehydrating a bunch, I use the 2 bowl shaker method and it works pretty well to remove the clove skins. Have you ever tried dehydrating garlic that has already been crushed?

Can't say as I have. Doesn't crushing activate the allicin or what ever that then has a very short lifetime? It's worth a thought though for the flavor. I would think the crushed garlic would dry down real fast on wax paper, and then grind up real quick. I really haven't got much experience dehydrating anything.

I thought that it would probably loose it's punch if crushed first before drying. It would probably also cause it to brown quite a bit while drying. I just slice the cloves before dehydrating. I dehydrated quite a bit last fall and winter and ended up with 2 quart mason jars full of garlic chips that I put into the freezer. Last weekend my brother from Stillwater, MN came down for a visit and I ground him up one full mason jar of chips and it ended up at nearly 3 cups of powder. He uses a lot of garlic powder in his home made BBQ rub.

I dehydrate all of the cloves that are rejected for planting in October and then I monitor the remaining bulbs thru the winter and if I see them start to dry up and brown I do another batch or 2.

To keep our garlic usable we ran it though the processor and froze it. But the DW wasn't about to peel 50+ bulbs worth! So, she got some boiling water and with a small unpeeled batch at a time she tossed it into the water for 10-15 seconds, immediately pulled it out and tossed it into an ice bath. Voila! Skins came off easily. I don't have any idea how that affects allicin, but since we use ours pretty much for cooking only it doesn't matter for us. I have read that if you cook garlic for any length of time or use it with anything acidic (like vinegar in salad dressing) the allicin is destroyed.

LoneJack, what is the two bowl shaker method?

naturegirl - The 2 bowl shaker method is pretty simple. Just take a dozen or so cloves, slice off the root end and place them in a small metal bowl and then put another metal bowl over the top and shake the dickens out of it for about 30 seconds. Most of the skins will come right off and the rest will be loosened.

Thanks for the info, LoneJack. That method is good to know. It sounds quick and fun :)

The bowl method makes a lot of noise, and it sucks if the bowls slip apart while shaking!!! You can do the same thing in a mason jar or old mayo jar - just put the garlic in, screw on the lid, and shake like mad. The cloves come out of their skins.

The bowl method makes a lot of noise.

Yes it does! I do it early in the morning when I am peeling garlic for dehydrating to wake up my son....works like a charm! I've not yet had the misfortune of the bowls slipping apart but I can envision garlic cloves flying in all directions. The bowls I use are pretty small ones that I purchased at an Asian grocery...they are not much bigger than my hand. I imagine the mason jar works well as long as you don't drop it!!

Yes it does! I do it early in the morning when I am peeling garlic for dehydrating to wake up my son....works like a charm!

A couple good whiffs of freshly peeled/bruised garlic probably helped too. ;-)

Lol ^^^ I just take big meat cleaver on it's side, sandwich the garlic between it and the cutting board and put my palm and weight against it. I guess it works for me but smaller set people look at me crazy when they see me doing it.

Oh, and I once had a metal garlic press but it got destroyed.

Yeah you could be right Zeedman but I do it in my basement work shop which just happens to be right below his bedroom. Once the dehydrator is turned on the whole house smells of garlic. I love it!!

Has anyone tried those garlic tubes?

https://www.amazon.com/Ginsco-Silicone-Garlic-Peeler-Kitchen/dp/B01MCRAH5S/ref=sr_1_2?s=home-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1493727711&sr=1-2&keywords=garlic+tube

Yes, they work fairly well if you only have a few cloves to peel, but seldom loosen all of the clove wrapper. As a vote, I'll keep mine...