Thanks LoneJack! Sounds good!

Like Jack, I dehydrate garlic yearly. The only "tip" I have is that I use the food processor to slice the cloves after peeling them. I just drop them by handfuls into the chute of the processor while running, using the slicing blade. It works better than I thought.

Oh, and if you put the garlic heads into the microwave for a few seconds they are easier to peel, I cut the top off the head of garlic and microwave for about 20 seconds. Your microwave may be more/less powerful than mine, so you may have to adjust the time.

Annie

Interesting, you could be able to make superior stronger flavored powder and you would know where the powder came from, other than using the generic softneck powder where you have no idea how and where they made it. Anybody else have ways to do it?

I agree, I grow 250 heads of hardneck "Music". 50 are cloves for replanting, next year's garlic. 100 are sold to the B&B across the street and the remaining 100 are for my use.

I do have an Excalibur dehydrator and it's easy to dehydrate garlic, among other things. I've never tried to do it in the oven or with another method.

Annie

I too have dehydrated most of my garlic every year; whatever is left over after gifting & planting. Those garlic chips make very useful & appreciated gifts (as indicated by how many people I've given them to ask for more). ;-) There are a lot of ways to peel the cloves, with different techniques working best for the different types.

For rocambole types, just let the cloves sit until the skins loosen; some will fall off on their own, and the rest will peel easily.

For other large cloves, I either peel them by hand, or cut off the roots & shake the cloves vigorously between two bowls... most skins will just fall off, or be easily removed.

For artichoke types or small cloves, I cut off the root, split the clove lengthwise, and dehydrate with the skins on. When dry, the skins will separate easily when shaking the dry cloves between bowls, or in a closed jar. Those skins can then be winnowed or blown off.

I too use the Excaliber dehydrator, it easily handles large batches. If fully dry, the garlic 'chips' store almost indefinitely in a freezer bag or sealed jar, even at room temperature. The chips can be added as is to soups & stews, or ground for powder as needed.

Handy tip: when grinding the chips (I use a blender) grind them only partially. Sift out the powder to refill your spice bottle, and put the larger pieces into a pepper mill. You might find the fresh-ground garlic powder to be as superior in flavor as fresh-ground black pepper.

Handy tip #2: you might be able to save fresh garlic longer than you think. I keep garlic cloves in ice cream pails, separated by variety. Last year, I put those pails on my unheated basement floor, intending to dehydrate them later - and forgot about them. The cloves kept in almost perfect condition all winter. Since I still have plenty of dried garlic chips, I left all of the basement cloves there until now to observe how long they could be stored.

Rocambole cloves began sprouting about March, Artichoke cloves have hardly sprouted at all even now, but are significantly dried out (perhaps because my basement dehumidifier is now running for the summer). Very few marbled purple stripe cloves have sprouted either; "Krasnodar Red" is only slightly shrunken. Some Porcelain varieties have sprouted, but "German White" looks nearly as good as when harvested one year ago! It appears that the conditions on the basement floor greatly improve the storage life of the cloves... not only extending availability of fresh garlic, but making it possible to keep backup stock in case of crop loss (as has happened to me twice). It also opens up the possibility of Spring planting, which I am experimenting with this year.