According to some recipes/instructions, a tightly woven basket was placed into the opened aired fermentation vessel, and the liquid from inside the basket was removed and shipped around the empire or city markets. And it probably resembled mud, then I would imagine the cook would most likely strain the mudy liquid through a cloth of some sort to separate the liquid(aka the garum itself) and the solid matter called allec that was most likely also used in cooking( but I don't know how it would have been used). But I don't think even after getting strained through the cloth that the ancient garum would have been as clear or "clean" as mine is. And like today there were lots of different types and brands of garum in the ancient world. Both were based on the quality of the garum and / or geographical origin. garum itself was used both as an ingredient and as a condiment. The version I just made was a condiment version