Brad Makes Fermented Garlic Honey

A lot of people get concerned about botulism.

(upbeat indie rock)

We're gonna do a little fermented garlic in honey, okay,

and that's two ingredients, that's it.

Well, sometimes there's a third but we'll get to that later.

I start with just, you know, really nice, raw,

try to get you know the best honey you possibly can,

local is best.

I mean you wanna use the best quality you can get.

Raw, raw, raw.

And then we got some really nice garlic,

I get this from the farmers' market.

Keats, Keats Farm, they have some of my favorite

medicinal grade garlic.

And Andrew Knowlton, how ya doin'?

(elevator music)

Alright.

So I just peel off the layers.

Over the garbage can, I know that's a big no no

in the food world, so just get over it.

What's this honey all about?

It's just a, you know, it's a, it's within the it's--

Why is it so warm?

'Cause well, alright.

You know sometimes honey gets crystallized

and it gets like too thick, you can't really pour it.

Some people, oh there you go, jump right in.

I'm not a big microwave fan, alright, I'll just say it.

You know I think it will kill maybe

some of the microorganisms in it

and that's the stuff that we actually want.

You know it's like a two part glue or epoxy,

you mix one and the other and it becomes the epoxy.

With garlic there's the same thing like when

if something's eating it it's a self defense mechanism

that the garlic has where it'll form a thing called allicin.

When something is crushing the cell walls,

it thinks it's getting eaten or attacked

so it starts to make the allicin and the allicin

is what's really really good for you in garlic.

Just getting the skin off of garlic sometimes is tricky

but if you give it a little crush,

it kind of just pops right out.

It's a lot of prep so I'd imagine and

this is the part where it'll be like,

(imitates machine noise)

and all of a sudden it's all peeled and nice.

Botulism will not survive in an acidic environment.

Below 4.6 on the pH scale.

I have a little pH meter and I test it.

If it starts to get above 4.6 sometimes I'll just splash

it with a little apple cider vinegar.

And that usually will bring it right back down.

I'm gonna leave the little nibbins on, no big deal.

Actually you know what Vin, let's cut 'em off, hold on.

We'll trim off any of them little booboo spots, alright.

Look at that, ooh, nice.

Nice crush, you see that bruise happening?

That's that allicin being formed.

So yeah we got our garlic in there.

And now what we'll do is just cover it with honey

and you wanna just make it nice and submerged.

So yeah yeah yeah, get this, Vin,

oh yeah, that's the stuff, bud.

Alright, so it's nice and, see how thick it is now.

Wait 'til you see, okay.

You get a couple days in, the liquid starts to get drawn out

of the garlic and this will turn super watery.

Again, best garlic, the best honey you can find.

Get it from your farmers' market or like that weird guy

that sells it off his driveway.

In a few days, it gets very active,

it bubbles, it foams up a little,

so you gotta leave some headspace,

otherwise you can have an explosion,

you can have a, you can have some problems.

Very very important.

You know I do it once or twice a day.

You gotta, it's called burping.

So what you're doing is you're letting the gases out.

And you'll hear it, when it's fermenting and you go,

it'll, we'll get the shot later don't you worry Vin.

And you can keep it out, you know, people say,

you can keep it out room temp for like,

like a year.

And the garlic, it'll get darker in color,

the texture changes, it gets a little chewy,

it's like little frickin' garlic candy.

And you know, FDA not approved

but it is very good for your immune system, I believe.

I believe.

(elevator music)

It's been since Tuesday, right, Tuesday.

I think it's Tuesday, anyway.

You can see look it's got a little pressure poppin' up.

And that means the gases are building up in there.

I'll burp it now.

(pop and hiss)

Oh yeah did you hear that Vin?

Little pop?

Remember when we first started it was a really,

really thick honey.

And now I mean it's, it almost looks like it's

not even honey, we didn't add anything else.

So we'll let that guy sit back there and then--

(elevator music)

Alright, Vinnie, hello.

Look it's got some nice pressure there.

Oh yeah.

Woof, you can smell it.

Look you see you got some nice

little white bubbles on the top?

I do have some older stuff here.

This one, look how liquidy that is.

Alright, this one's about six months old.

Sometimes I like to add just a little splash

of apple cider vinegar, you can add a pinch of cayenne.

And you can top it off, you know, if you see

it's getting a little low, you can just throw some more in

and let that ferment away.

And look this is nothing but garlic and honey.

Look how liquidy that gets.

If you start feeling a little froggy, a little sick,

just shoot that back, you can do this every day.

Mhm.

It loses that real spicy bite that raw garlic has.

(drum roll)

Pretty good stuff.

Alright.

'Mented garlic honey, boom.

My philosophy, Vin, it's all about

preventative maintenance, okay?

Say it with me, preventative maintenance.

I'll probably get sick tomorrow.