Anonymous Modernist 10549

Thanks for the tip but I used a trivet the first time I tried the recipe and then a much taller steamer rack the second time so that's not the problem. The heat issue might just be the culprit. I pressurized at a medium heat and then lowered it a little bit for the duration of the cook time. Going with the smell and taste I got, it being overcooked would definitely be a possibility. Can I ask what your final product looked/smelled/tasted like? Did you have any of the mysterious reddish brown gel at the bottom of the jar? Thanks again!

I was thinking that maybe raising the water level would help. The way my PC works with the rack in it for jars the water barely touches the bottom but i still got a lot of the reddish/brown substance at the bottom of the jar. If you got the same results with more water than I am a little more stumped than I already was. I had been using a decent oil, nice garlic from my local farmers market, and fresh herbs from my garden. I will definitely try all future experiments with cheaper ingredients from here on out!

At least this means that it wasn't just me. My only thought was that maybe if the water level was high enough to be an inch up the side of the jar instead of just an inch deep in the pot that it might make a difference. All I know is for sure is that smell will probably never come out of the gasket on my pressure cooker.

I've been having some problems with the Garlic Confit recipe and I'm hoping someone can give me a little guidance. The first time I attempted the recipe was with my old pressure cooker. I measured everything out and filled the jar, placed on a rack inside the pot with an inch of water in it, got it up to 15 psi, and set a timer for 2 hours. It didn't make it that long. About an hour and a half in, I started noticing a really intense, unpleasant smell that made me think that the garlic was overcooked.. I took the pot off of the heat and depressurized it... which was a terrible idea. My entire house was filled with garlic fumes that started burning my eyes immediately. I brought the pot outside and had to keep all of the windows in my house open for hours before it subsided. Once everything was cooled off I examined the garlic. The oil was a dark brown, the garlic slightly wrinkled, and there was a small amount of very dark oil at the bottom of the jar. As horrible as it looked, I still decided to taste it. Both the oil and garlic were extremely potent and had a strong, lingering bitter aftertaste. Obviously something had gone wrong and my assumption was that the heat was too high and had scorched the oil and garlic alike. I recently bought a new Fagor pressure cooker and decided to give this another try. I did everything the same but this time I set the heat as low as I could and still keep the pot pressurized. At the 1:45 mark I started to get a little paranoid and pulled it from the heat and took it outside to depressurize it (at least I learned something from the first attempt!). The smell was not nearly as bad as the first time around but it still wasn't very appetizing. The garlic looked a little better, the oil a little clearer and less brown, and only a small amount of the excessively dark oil on the bottom. The taste was negligibly different from the first time; strong, bitter, and unpleasant. What am I missing here? What should it look like? What should it taste like? Did anyone else essentially fill their house with the garlic equivalent of pepper spray when they tried this? Did you have to take it outside? Has your wife banned you from a third attempt like mine? I keep reading other people's accounts of this recipe and it sounds like something I would like to have around but what I've created is good for nothing other than keeping the raccoons out of my garbage cans. HELP!!