Hard Cook Beans

[Awnry Abe]

Doing some spring cleaning around here I found a large bag of beans that turned out to be hard cook. Would putting them in canning jars and using the pressure canner soften them?

Or are they destined for chicken feed?

[salmonslayer]

What do you mean "hard cook? If they are just dried then put them into a pot of water bring to a boil and then turn it off and let them soak for 5 or 6 hours then cook as normal. I had dried beans 5 years old that still cooked up okay at our cabin in Alaska.

[Ross]

Beans do take a lot of cooking to soften them up. Did my first batch ever last month, soaked boiled and baked probably took a day!

[Nevada]

When beans get old, particularly when they got frozen in storage, they can get to the point where they stay hard after cooking. I haven't tried pressure cooking them, since I don't happen to have one, but I would be curious if that helps.

[kimmom2five]

I found on pinterest the best way to cook beans. Put them in a Dutch oven with enough water to cover them by a couple of inches. After they come to a boil turn off the fire, cover the pot and put the whole thing on a preheated 250 degree oven and cook for 75 minutes. Every time I have tried this they have come out perfect.

[Awnry Abe]

I usually have pretty good luck with just soaking beans. These ones have survived all day at simmer and were still crunchy. That was many moons ago. That's how I learned what 'hard cook' meant. They have been tucked in the back corner of the pantry for quite some time, so I can't imagine they are any better by now.

I guess when you are to cheap to throw out bad beans, it says a lot about you.

[CaliannG]

I've had to salvage hard cooked beans before.

~puts on her best commercial announcer voice~ THIS is a job for........................


........................... a crock pot.

Three days, on low, keep adding water. On the beginning of the third day, add your spices, onions, whatever you want to add for flavor to it. Fill to the BRIM with water twice a day for the first 2 days.

Yeah, I *have* been so low that I couldn't throw out mummified beans. But I understand being cheap too.

[oldmania]

Since all dried beans are hard, how can you tell they are "hard cooked beans?"

[Cyngbaeld]

Pressure canning usually will do the trick. Soak them overnight first.

[Tracy Rimmer]

I cook most of my dried bean in the crock pot now -- they always come out perfect.

Beans in pot, cover with water to about 2 inches above the beans, put on high for four or five hours, then on low for 6-7 before adding any other ingredients. I typically put them on while I'm cleaning up from dinner at night, let them go on high all evening, turn them down before I go to bed, and the next morning, add my "extras" to them and let them cook on low all day.

Perfect, yummy beans EVERY time

[oneokie]

Using rain water to cook beans with is a big plus. If you have to add water during cooking, use hot water, not cold.

[K.B.]

Pressure cook them with 2 1/2 cups water per cup of beans for ~75-90 minutes depending on the type of bean. Works just fine with old beans.

I've never had to pre-soak beans for pressure canning, either. leave a little extra room for water and a bit of salt and can them at 12-15 lbs for 75-90 minutes.

[salmonslayer]

Originally Posted by CrownRanch

I usually have pretty good luck with just soaking beans. These ones have survived all day at simmer and were still crunchy. That was many moons ago. That's how I learned what 'hard cook' meant. They have been tucked in the back corner of the pantry for quite some time, so I can't imagine they are any better by now.

I guess when you are to cheap to throw out bad beans, it says a lot about you.

I am so cheap I consider left overs to be the noodles caught in the sink strainer after you have done the dishes...salvaging old dried out beans is just being frugal!

[nomifyle]

They can be ground in a wheat grinder and make a cream soup or just add to other dishes.

Judy

[willowworker]

I have ground them and added to my flour when baking breads, or used flour for thickening soups.

[texican]

Put em in a pressure cooker, and it'll soften em. I think you could put fire bricks in and it'd turn em into pudding.

[Paquebot]

If you've got some hard-cook beans which won't soften up no matter how they are cooked, it's quite probable that they weren't meant to be eaten that way. I'm probably the only one on HT who has a 100+ variety mix of beans and over 10 gallons. It includes some of just about every variety grown in past 10 years. There are some of the snap beans which will never soften. They may be soaked for 24 hours, cooked, cooled, and reheated several times as leftovers and still crunchy. If it's any help in preventing it, it's the white ones which are worse.

Martin

[mekasmom]

Originally Posted by CrownRanch

I guess when you are to cheap to throw out bad beans, it says a lot about you.

I love this quote.

I agree that boiling for a few minutes, then just soaking them in that water before cooking will soften even old beans.

[CaliannG]

Originally Posted by oldmania

Since all dried beans are hard, how can you tell they are "hard cooked beans?"

When you have soaked them overnight and then simmered them for several hours and they are STILL "crunchy", they are "hard cook".

In other words, you don't always know until you have tried to make a meal out of some of them.

As beans age, the starches and fats inside them change, kind of mold together. It pushes more moisture out of the bean, but it also makes it harder for the bean to *absorb* moisture. The fats form a water barrier. This is why it can take days of simmering to turn a hard cook bean into something edible.

Something similar happens to the starches in potatoes. Ever thought you'd get a head start on a big meal by cutting up the potatoes for mashed potatoes the night before, putting them in a bowl of water and storing them in your fridge overnight...then just dumping it in a pot the next day and turning the stove on? You can cook them forever, and they STILL won't break apart with a fork, and if you try to mash them, they are like rubber.

This is due to a change in the construction of the starch molecules in the potatoes.

How frugal is it to run an electric crock pot for three days to cook a pot of beans ?