More on Old Beans

 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.

More on Beans

I made another pot of beans with the pressure cooker last night, as discussed previously, but after soaking the beans I discovered I didn't have any onions--which was a problem.  I have never made beans without fresh onion, but I decided to give dried minced onion a try.  I had some of that in the pantry.

Normally I put in two onions, but the amount in two onions varies.  It's probably usually about two to three cups of diced onion.  Usually, dried vegetables and herbs seem to rehydrate to about a 3:1 ratio; one teaspoon dried equals about one tablespoon fresh.  So I tossed in 3/4 cups of minced onion.  I also added more water.  Normally I put the water level right at the top of the beans (sometimes slightly more if cooking in a non-pressurized pot), but I added quite a bit more because I knew the dehydrated onion would absorb water, rather than increase the water level as fresh onions do when they cook down.

In the end, I put a bit too much extra water in.  Another alternative would've been to rehydrate them before adding to the pot, but that seems to be unnecessary.  The picture at right shows the pot after I had scooped out a generous portion for dinner.  The flavor was okay. A whole cup would have worked, too, but the results with 3/4 cup were fine. I wouldn't mind doing them this way again (and probably will; I have more minced onion that I haven't been using much of and I need to learn to use it for more than marinade). Minced onion keeps for a long time if properly packaged.

I could also substitute dehydrated / minced garlic, though I have no experience with it.  The only dry form I have used is powdered.  The bacon would be another problem.  It's an important component in the recipe and I'm not immediately aware of non-fresh or frozen alternatives.  I do know about canned bacon, but that's already cooked and might not work very well.  I may try it sometime just to see how it goes.  This time, by the way, I used thick-cut bacon, which was much easier to slice into small pieces than normal thin-cut bacon is.  I dropped it back down to four ounces, and that was fine (both in terms of flavoring and deterring foaming).

For the record:  It took 25 minutes after the cooking time ended for the pressure to drop in the cooker.  The guidelines for beans in the manual say the pressure should drop on its own rather than via venting.

Lastly, I ran across a site that has nutritional information for generally wholesome foods; pintos are on their list:  World's Healthiest Foods-Pinto Beans.

Beans (and Dealing with Old Beans)

I love beans. I have grown Kentucky Wonder pole beans and bush pinto and cranberry beans (I have also planted cranberry beans from the store; as far as I know there are no hybrids [ditto for store-bought pintos]).  This post is about cooking with pintos and cranberry beans.  I like cranberry beans more--they're somewhat sweeter--but both are good. I'm not a real fan of kidney beans, black beans, or others--at least when i cook them myself.  I do have some Anasazi beans; they turn out okay.

Until very recently, my procedure was invariably this:  soak one pound of beans for at least six hours.  Before soaking, the beans have to be sorted through fairly carefully.  There are usually a number of bad beans in the bag, and there will often be some small dirt clods and rocks.  The beans themselves grow in pods above ground level (unlike peanuts), but modern harvesting methods make it pretty easy for foreign objects to get into the finished product (however, in a one-pound tranche of dry beans, you probably will not find more than a couple of rocks). After soaking, some sites recommend draining then rinsing, to limit gas byproducts of bean consumption.  Other sites say that doesn't help much.  Even if it helps some, it probably won't eliminate the problem: Beano and similar products can help with that.

After soaking, set the level of the water at just barely above the soaked beans; add two diced onions, a few cloves of garlic (4-6 usually, sometimes 10 depending on size), and bacon (4 ounces); then cook covered on low heat for about 90 minutes. When I lived in Denver at higher altitude, they had to be cooked for about two hours.  At that point, check for tenderness; if the beans are done, cook on slightly higher heat with the lid off for another 10-20 minutes or so--this will cause the beans to cook out some excess water (if there is any, which there usually is), and allow them to skin over a little.  The final result is usually really good.  I've been cooking them this way for a very long time.


The last few pots, I've switched to a pressure cooker. A friend in Denver suggested I do that long ago, but I never did until recently.  I stuck with the tried and true method above.  For pressure cooking, the procedures are similar, but the cooking time is less. I adjust the water level to just below the soaked beans (the onions release a lot of water while cooking and I don't cook them down like I do with the open pot). I upped the bacon to six ounces because the pressure cooker manual said a teaspoon of cooking oil should be added to cut down on the amount of foaming during cooking.  I figured the extra bacon would add enough fat.  So far, I do not seem to have any foaming issues, but I don't put much into the vessel (one pound of beans into an eight-quart cooker).  The manual says six minutes at pressure, but I cook them for 12 and the results are good.

It takes me about a half hour to cut everything up and add it to the pot--I'm not that fast--and then pressure cooking time is about 45 minutes overall: it takes a while to heat up to pressure, then still longer for the pressure to drop after the 12 minutes.  That's still substantially faster than cooking in a non-pressurized pot, and heats the house up less (a plus in summer).

Why'd I get a pressure cooker?  Trouble with old pintos.  I bought a 10-pound bag of pinto beans, and had a few that didn't get cooked for a couple of years.  They looked fairly old soon after I got them and looked worse when I finally tried cooking the last few pounds (old pintos turn dark brown).

Utah State University has guidelines on softening old beans.  Cooking the normal way didn't work.  Even after two hours, they didn't soften and tasted pretty gross.  The first attempt was just about the worst pot of beans I've ever made.

I then tried one of the suggestions--adding baking soda to the cooking water.  Didn't work.  Another suggestion was to freeze the beans after cooking.  That helped a little one time, but failed another.  Maybe freezing after soaking, before cooking might help.  I didn't try that.  Finally, I decided to get a pressure cooker.  I cooked the first load for 15 minutes and it worked--at least it made them tender.  The taste wasn't 100%, but they were ok.

Why go through so much trouble? After all, they cost less than a dollar a pound.  But sooner or later, I'll have more old beans to deal with.  So I was motivated to find a way to make them work.  As a byproduct, I have now implemented a way to cook even fresh(er) beans that's quicker and somewhat easier.

Above I mentioned that they usually turn out well.  That's not quite right.  Usually, they turn out heavenly.  It's probably a little weird to be so euphoric about beans, but for whatever reason, they are just about my favorite dish.  One pound when cooked will last me for several meals.  They're usually the main course.  I add a little bread on the side sometimes, or cornbread.  I know I don't add enough grains to get full protein out of the beans, but that's okay.  If I have to in the future, I can do that.

Many thanks to the person in Denver decades ago who schooled me in how to do these; she brought them to a party; I loved them; and she explained how she did them.  I've been making them ever since.