A few years ago I discussed ways to deal with old pinto beans (and other dry beans). I mentioned that pressure cooking them for 15 minutes seemed to work (the manual for my cooker suggests 3-6 minutes for pinto beans, so 15 is a substantial increase in cooking time). I had some more very old beans (vintage 2011, not stored in an oxygen-free environment) in the pantry that I decided to try to prepare.
A new pinto bean is at the top for comparison. When I soaked the beans overnight, they did swell substantially, so that was a good sign. I poured off the water and pressure cooked them together with granulated garlic, dried minced onion, and some salt pork (rather than bacon, of which I did not have any thawed). This was the result:
They're still quite dark, and hadn't absorbed as much of the cooking water as anticipated (compare to the results from a previous effort):
This time, the beans were also a bit al dente. Longer cooking time may have helped. Possibly 20 minutes? Aside from the firmness, they tasted fine. The nutritional content might have been lacking in some categories.
I don't really have much information on beans stored in a light- and oxygen-free container. They are probably better. Cyrus Larson, et al. at BYU tested vacuum-packed dry beans aged up to 32 years and found that they were at least edible.
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