Safety of Garlic in Oil

I know there are warnings about making garlic infused olive oil. How quickly does this become an issue? I started to make garlic croutons this AM and had minced garlic in warm olive oil. I decided I should let it infuse a bit before making the croutons. I meant to refrigerate the olive oil (garlic added) but I am pretty sure I left it sitting in the microwave. Could there be an issue with botulism spores in a period of 12 hours or so? Should I toss it and start over this evening? .

caninechef
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3 Comments

caninechef
caninechef March 3, 2017
Minor emergency last night put off crouton production yet again so I just tossed the oil. Will start anew over the weekend.
 
HalfPint
HalfPint March 2, 2017
If you heat the garlic/oil mixture to 212F, this should destroy the stop the toxin from developing. Likewise, you can toss and start over since it's a simple recipe. But like @KTFoley wrote, botulism poisoning is quite rare.
 
KTFoley
KTFoley March 2, 2017
Great question! Everything I've read says that many factors influence the development of botulism, such as how much acid you added to the mixtures, how long you cooked the garlic and at what temperature. It's hard to give you a clear thumbs-up or thumbs-down, except to note that cases of Botulism are very rare.
 
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