Preserving Garlic
Silverskin or Porcelain garlics are usually still good in storage all through the winter and into the spring. But if you're going to want to try to preserve it, anyway, then you have three pretty safe choices for longer term storage (drying, freezing and pickling - recommended) and one fairly dangerous choice for shorter term storage (in oil - NOT recommended).
Drying Garlic.
Drying garlic is the least expensive and safest way to preserve garlic and retain as much as possible of its fresh character. It's also easy to do. Simply cut the garlic into 1/8" to 1/4" thin slices, and dry them in your dehydrator at 100 to 130o F or so and dry them until they are hard and crisp, even on the inside but still light in color. Do not overcook them, when they turn brown they will turn bitter.
In a few days they will become completely dry will keep for years if you can keep it dry. The dried slices should to be kept whole until used in order to better preserve the allicin potential. You can grind the dried slices into powder or nuggets at the time you use them and upon re-moisturizing, allicin happens. The whole dried slices will retain almost all of their potency.
Note: Drying garlic is the only way to retain the potential to make allicin - neither freezing nor pickling can do that, and allicin is the beginning of everything that garlic means to us as food, flavoring or pharmaceutical.
Pickling Garlic.
Pickled garlic may not be exactly like fresh garlic but it has a wonderfully refreshing and invigorating flavor of its own. They lose a lot of the heat in pickling and so you can eat more garlic this way. I found a few recipes to pass on for several different ways of pickling garlic. Pickle the garlic anyway you want to, but pickle it and eat it because it is too delicious of a snack to pass up.

Pickled Garlic:
12 large heads garlic, about 1 3/4 lb
21/2 cups white vinegar
1 cup dry white wine
1 tbsp pickling salt
1 tbsp granulated sugar
1 tbsp dried oregano
5 dried whole chili peppers
Separate garlic bulbs into cloves. To soften and loosen skins, blanch garlic cloves in rapidly boiling water 30 seconds; immediately immerse in cold water, drain and peel cloves.
Place 5 clean 8 oz Mason jars in a boiling water canner; fill with water, bring to a boil. Boil SNAP lids 5 minutes to soften sealing compound.
In a large stainless steel saucepan, combine vinegar, wine, pickling salt, sugar and oregano. Bring to a boil; boil gently 1 minute; remove from heat. Add peeled garlic cloves to hot vinegar mixture. Stir constantly 1 minute.
Pack garlic and 1 dried whole chili pepper into a hot jar to within 3/4-inch of top rim. Add hot liquid to cover garlic to within 1/2-inch of top rim (head space). Using rubber spatula, remove air bubbles. Wipe jar rim removing any stickiness. Centre SNAP lid on jar; apply screw band just until fingertip tight. Place jar in canner. Repeat for remaining garlic and liquid.
Cover canner; return water to a boil. Process -- boil filled jars -- 10 minutes. Remove jars. Cool undisturbed 24 hours. Check jar seals. Sealed lids curve downward. Remove screw bands; wipe and dry bands and jars. Store screw bands separately or replace loosely on jars, as desired. Label and store in a cool, dark place.
Warning: This recipe was specially formulated to allow home canners to preserve a low acid food -- garlic -- in a commonly available boiling water canner. Please do not deviate from the recipe ingredients; quantities jar size and processing method and time. Any change could affect the safety of the end product.
Fermented Garlic Pickles
PICKLING with LACTO-FERMENTATION
Back before the advent of canning and freezing, folks preserved their vegetable harvest via lacto-fermentation. This process, once commonplace, survives today mostly in the form of sauerkraut and kim-chi. These days, almost all store bought pickles and contemporary pickle recipes are vinegar-based. Lacto-fermented pickles contain no vinegar at all.
In lacto-fermentation, salt is added to vegetables, either by covering them in salty water or by mixing them with salt to draw out their own juices. Either way, the vegetable ends up stewing in salty liquid. Lactic microbial organisms take hold in this environment and make it so acidic that bacteria that cause food to spoil can't live there. The result is a pickled food that will keep without canning or refrigeration. Lacto-fermented pickles are also full of beneficial bacteria that, like the bacteria in yogurt, are good for your gut and make food more digestible.
Just about any firm, sturdy vegetable can be lacto-fermented including Radishes (daikon especially), cucumbers, cabbage, baby onions, green beans, carrots, beets, lemons, turnips, and, of course, garlic cloves will work nicely. Essentially, all you have to do is pack a canning jar or crock with your veggies and cover them with a brine solution and leave it somewhere dark and cool to ferment. Pickling time varies by taste, vegetable, ambient temperature, but say anywhere from three days to four weeks. Open it up and sample at regular intervals to decide when you like your pickles best. It's a frighteningly simple and flavorful transformation.
Use sea salt or canning salt over iodized salt and non-chlorinated water. The saltier your solution, the longer the vegetable will last, but too much salt can be unpalatable. More salt is generally required in the summer when microbial action is fast paced, less in the winter.
If you're pickling your veggies in brine, covering them with premixed salt water, at:
1. 2 tablespoons of sea salt per quart of water (a 3.6% brine solution) is a pretty standard strength for most pickles.
2. 3 tablespoons of salt per quart (5.4% solution) yields a salty but extra long lasting pickle.
3. 10% brine lasts even longer but often the vegetables must be soaked in fresh water before being eaten.
4. Some old-time recipes call for brines with enough salt to float an egg. This translates to about a 10% salt solution.
5. Experiment with brine strength. A general rule of thumb to consider in salting your ferments: more salt to slow microorganism action in summer heat; less salt in winter when microbial action slows.
The directions are simple:
1. Clean and cut veggies and fill a very clean jar. Add any spices (like black peppercorns or chili peppers) and, to increase crunchiness, add fresh tannin-rich grape leaves (or fresh cherry, oak, and/or horseradish leaves).
2. Pour brine to cover. Leave a little breathing room at the top of the jar about 1/2″.
3. Cap and wait: once the vegetables are in the jars, leave them at room temperature (72 degrees) for 4 to 14 days. During summer months, I leave them on my kitchen counter to ferment. During the fall and winter, I snuggle my jars into towels and place them in an insulated picnic cooler. How long you allow them to ferment depends on how tangy you like your vegetables. I suggest opening a jar after three to five days but if you like the tanginess, allow them to ferment a bit longer. After 14 days, you can place all the jars in the refrigerator for up to eight months.
4. It is important to note that fermented vegetables have a very distinct smell and may bubble and fizz when first opened. When done correctly, they have a strong sour smell.

Note: "Dry Style" fermentation you're packing salt and shredded vegetables together (like sauerkraut and kim-chi) use minimum of 1 1/2 percent salt by weight of vegetables or about two to three tablespoons of salt per quart of prepared veggies.
1. Shred vegetable
2. Pack into container, salting as you go
3. Put a weight on top of the vegetable to help press out the liquids. Cover with cheesecloth.
4. It should take about three days minimum to pickle. Do a taste test every few days thereafter, and as soon as you have got a good flavor (probably in about a week or so) transfer your pickles to the refrigerator where they should last for several months as leaving them in a cabinet, they won't last nearly as long.
You'll know they're bad if they start to smell or look off, or take on a slimy texture.

Refrigerator Garlic Pickles A
Ingredients: Whole, peeled garlic cloves Red wine vinegar
Salt (about 1 Tbs. per cup of vinegar)
Place the cloves of garlic in a jar with an air-tight lid. Add enough vinegar to cover, and add salt. Place lid on jar and shake to dissolve salt. Store in the refrigerator for two weeks before using to "cure". These should keep almost indefinitely, covered and refrigerated.

Refrigerator Garlic Pickles B
Ingredients: Whole, peeled garlic cloves
5% Vinegar of your choice
Kikkoman's light soy sauce
Place the cloves of garlic in a jar with a lid and add enough vinegar to cover. Place lid on jar and store in the refrigerator for two weeks to "cure". Drain vinegar off and use separately as garlic flavored vinegar. Place cloves into jar and add soy sauce to cover. Wait a week or more before eating. These should keep almost indefinitely, covered and refrigerated.

Refrigerator Garlic Pickles C
2 whole heads garlic, divided into peeled cloves
2/3 cup distilled white vinegar or wine vinegar
3 tablespoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon commercial mixed pickling spice
3 sprigs fresh thyme, 3 inches long
one 1/2 pint sterilized jar with lid
Peel garlic, cut any pieces that are thicker than 3/4 inch in half length-wise. In a small saucepan, boil vinegar, sugar, salt and pickling spice, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Add garlic cloves and return to a boil; cook stirring for 1 minute. Put thyme sprigs in jar then pour in garlic, liquid, and spices, filling to within 1/4 inch of top, making sure garlic is covered. Cover tightly. Let sit at room temperature for 24 hours to blend flavors, then refrigerate for up to 2 months.
Garlic in Oil
Warning! - Not Safe. It's important to keep food safety in mind when storing garlic in oil. Low-acid foods like raw garlic can be a source of Clostridium botulinum bacteria. Oil's oxygen-free environment is perfect for growth of this anaerobic bacteria. Garlic in oil, therefore, must be stored correctly to prevent botulism food poisoning. It's best to store these oils in the refrigerator, but for a limited time only, not be refrigerated longer than 3 weeks. After 3 weeks of refrigeration, the increased number of bacteria will become a food safety hazard. This conflicts with the desire for long term storage of the garlic, however, after removing the garlic, the flavored oil can be stored safely at room temperature. When vegetables or herbs are dried, water will not be available for bacterial growth. Therefore, DRIED vegetables (including garlic) in oil can be stored safely at room temperature. Note. Tomatoes are high in acid. Therefore, plain dried tomatoes in oil can be safely stored at room temperature.

I grow North German cultivar of Porcelain (ophios) garlic which may be the most cold hearty garlics of all and will survive -45oF . Their bulbs are usually over 2 1/2 inches in diameterand with 3" bulbs are not unusual . The wrappers tend to be very thick, very white and parchment-like and tightly cover their few 3 to 5, but very large, cloves. Great eating garlic, Porcelains are all very richly flavored garlic. Porcelain garlics store longer than most other garlics, only the Silverskins store longer, it's hard to ask much more out of a garlic.
The Porcelains are the densest of all garlics and weigh more per unit of volume than the other kinds and research scientists say that makes it a superior medicinal garlic
In our experience, Porcelains are very hardy garlic and will grow well in most of the USA, but get larger the further North they are grown. Even so, they do well in most areas of the South most years although they are "iffy" in Florida and South Texas and the warmer winter parts of California.
Porcelain garlics are unique in that the scapes they produce in the spring coil in all kinds of ways and resemble a bed of snakes before the scapes all straighten up and become vertical. If eaten while soft and still in the curl, the scapes are absolutely delicious in soup, dips and stir fries.

We plant from cloves, as most people do, though some plant bulbils that develop on scapes. The problem is that your clove size is reduced by about a third and it takes two full growing seasons to mature the bulblets. We usually plant our garlic the end of October and harvest late in July, well before the Silverskins.

Thanks for this info.