Garlic in marinades in a vacuum chamber workarounds?

[Lbakermathews]

So I recently purchased a vacuum chamber sealer VP215.  I love to do quick marinades and some of my marinades include the use of garlic, given that it's advised not to use raw garlic when using the vacuum chamber, I'm wondering  how you guys work around this.   Also I have a question about quick pickling.  If I quick pickle in the vacuum chamber sealer and the recipe calls for a few cloves of garlic, is it okay to put those in? TIA

[Shalmanese]

It's not the vacuum chamber, it's that SV meat temperatures aren't high enough to cook garlic. Vacuum marinated meat that's later roasted or grilled is fine. For SV, use either roasted garlic, sauteed garlic or garlic powder. 

[btbyrd]

I asked Dave Arnold about garlic and chamber vacs on an episode of Cooking Issues (it's the first segment in this episode). Long story short... as long as you're refrigerating it, there's not really an issue with using garlic in a chamber vac - especially if you're just doing it for short times (like with a marinade). The same goes for quick pickling. You have to do quick pickles at the last minute (or close to it) because they'll become soggy and sad if you try to keep them for very long. You won't have pickles in there for long enough for botulism spores to grow, so go nuts.

 

And like Shalmanese says, the main reason not to include garlic in sous vide recipes is that the temps are too low to break down plant materials, so you'll end up with basically raw (crunchy) garlic if you do it that way. If all you're doing is marinating before a traditional cook step (which is a great technique, by the way) then use the garlic don't worry about it.

[Shalmanese]

I'll forgo my usual rant about people's obsession with Garlic and Botulism despite Garlic only being responsible for 3% of Botulism.

 

Soil Botulism only grows above 10C and above a pH of 4.6, even in an anaerobic environment. If you're marinating meats, you should be getting it below 4C anyway, regardless of botulism and most marinade contain acids that should bring the pH low enough. It would take a lot to abuse a marinade in such a way that botulism becomes a concern and if you do, you probably have other pathogens you need to worry about anyway.

[Lbakermathews]

Whew..thank you Shalmanese and btbyrd.  I'm glad to know that I don't have to take garlic out of my marinades, and that I can quick pickle with garlic