Re:maybe yes, maybe no

Just wanted to say that after reading the original post, then Wombats and the Candadian web site, I am not 100% convinced that this is a sitation with Botulism.....maybe it is, and for that reason be cautious, but I have my doubts..... and Wombat and others I hope you do not mind me chiming in here with my 2 cents worth.

Main reason I am commenting is that the very first batch of home made garlic oil that I ever made (back in 2005) ...... well, it experienced a sort of fizzing messy situation the way it was briefly described at the beginning of this thread here. That has now been approx 3 batches ago.....and I still have some of each of these 3 batches on the shelf, the same shelf, literally, outside the frig. It is one thing to have an herb experiement sort of blow up in my face, literally, but it is another thing to have gotten the idea out of a book published by someone somewhat famous for using (and publishing the use of) herbal remedies. After the mess was cleaned up and I calmed down a bit, I realized the thing that angered me the most was the unexpected nature of the situation.......I woulda thought that an expert of such home-made remedies would have atleast provided a lit bit of warning ahead of time for their readers, especially any unsuspecting newbies among them a la "don't be surprised if ______ hapens when you go to open the jar of garlic oil that has been sitting in a sunny window for 3 or 4 days ", but they didn't.

Here is how I remember the basic instructions: "put some garlic cloves in a mason jar filled with olive oil, then place the oil in a sunny window for 3 days....if you want extra strong garlic oil, leave it in the window for 4 days before harvesting". I figured, these are not really complicated instructions, so I followed them as is... and yes, even though I was a bit unsure of the sanity of putting garlic in an eclosed jar of oil in a sunny window, this is what I did. I peeled the cloves of approximately 3 to 4 heads of garlic, then made some tiny cuts "wounds" in each clove before putting into jar and filling with enough olive oil (about 1/2 quart) to cover the cloves before placing the lid on the jar. I then placed the jar in a sunny window. 3 days later I decided to harvest the oil. In the middle of the afternoon without much fore thought, I sort of spontaneously decided to harvest this batch of oil on a moments notice, when the sun was still shining through the window ..... and had been for for several hours. If I had put a little more thought into this, I would have waited till night time to open the jar.... at a time PERHAPS when the oil in the jar had cooled enough to not trigger the fizzy messy reaction.....but no, I did not do it this way :(

The main theory I have on why the contents fizzed all over the place has more to do with thermal dynamcis and less to do with botulism..... after all the jar was holding approximately 1 quart of relatively warm stuff (oil and garlic) ..... plus with the lid in place for 3 days this probably allowed the environment inside the jar to come under enough pressure to accentuate the Mt St Helens effect upon removing the lid 3 days later.... at the moment I popped the lid, there was a distinct but not very loud pop.... followed by a delay of 1 to 2 seconds.....during which I could see this reaction sort of forming on the inside of the jar .... in other words a long enough delay for me to notice AND figure out I did not have much time to prepare for what was about to happen and then within a nother second or two the oil started oozing out of the jar and dripping all over the place. Granted, I was and mostly remain a novice in this respect and am certainly no expert on Botulism.... so I really cannot explain why it might be that this oozing effect would be caused strictly due to botulism having formed in the oil and not a matter of thermal dynamcis.....maybe it is in part a result of both.... ? Is there a botulism expert in the house? Can you help me understand why the home made garlic oil that I have been storing OUTSIDE the refrigerator, which is to say, I have been storing in my pantry where it is usually dark and room-temperature-coool..... and I've been using this garlic oil both internally and externally for several years now.....so if it is full of botulism, should I not be observing and sufferring more obvious conditions by now?

In all the many pages that I have read in books written by JR Christopher, I have yet to find a single page wherein he deliberately and clearly cautioned his readers to be sure to keep garlic oil stored in the refrigerator. I do not doubt that it is okay to keep garlic oil in the frig, but I do doubt that this is mandatory to prevent botulism forming. Likewise in all of Richard Schulze 's works that I have read / watched / listened to. The closest I have come in this respect is that I have seen and heard, in person, MH openly suggests that people who keep their home made garlic oil outside the refrigerator may do well to add 1 or 2 drops of oregano oil as a general purpose natural preservative. I have been following this advice even though I do not know exactly why. Tweet