Pressure Cooking Beans

[Pronoid]

So I just got a pressure cooker over the holidays, which has been long overdue considering I go through about 12 cans of beans a week. I make one large batch of chili and another large batch of a chicken stew. Those batches are my two lunches for the week. And yes I eat two lunches per day...

Essentially, I'm trying to just use the pressure cooker to prep the dry beans before I put them in the chili/crock pot in order to cook them like I would with canned beans. My dilemma comes with the presoaking. I read online that I'm supposed to soak the beans for 8 hours(!!) before cooking or I can quick soak with the pressure cooker. However, I failed miserably when trying the quick soak with both my kidney beans and chickpeas. I ended up undercooking the kidney and overcooking the chick. So what is the best way to presoak and cook? Is presoaking even necessary?

TL;DR - What's the best way to presoak and cook dry beans in a pressure cooker in order to then cook them in chili or an 8 hour crockpot without crunchiness or sogginess?

[jacob]

Chickpeas require very little cooking (0-5 minutes) after soaking. Kidney beans require about 45 minutes. Pressure cooker times. So that's your problem.

If you're just gonna put them in a slowcooker for 8 hours, you don't need to precook or soak them at all.

If your cooking time is less, soak both for 4-8 hours but only pressure cook the kidney beans, about 30 mins. Then put them in the chili and cook them normally the rest of the way.

[theanimal]

I cook mine without a pressure cooker but I have some advice wrt soaking.

Place the dried beans in a pot or your pressure cooker before you go to bed, work etc. By the time you're up or ready to cook them they will be all ready. Don't worry about soaking them too long. I've soaked them for 2-3 days (on accident) with no ill effects.

[KevinW]

The long soak is more foolproof so I recommend starting there.

Old beans may be overly dry and may require more soaking/cooking than fresher beans.

Lentils don't need to be presoaked.

[slowth]

You'll need to soak and boil the kidney beans. Don't only cook them in the crockpot. There's a toxic compound you need to deactivate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phaseolus ... s#Toxicity

In this case I would soak both chickpeas and kidneys, throw chickpeas in the crockpot to start cooking, and pressure cook the kidneys to done and then add to crockpot.

[Felix]

I just wanted to start a thread on the topic. My dry beans (white beans) tend to turn into mush. (I have a drawer filled with dried beans I got for 1€/kg). It's no problem for hummus, but I want to make baked beans.
I'm clearly overcooking them. Maybe going for the mix between pressure cooking a bit and then doing the rest in the crockpot as jacob advised does the trick. Any other advice?

I soak them for 24 hours, then cook them in the pressure cooker in new water. Either they are still hard or are mush. I now have a freezer filled with hummus.

[saving-10-years]

Do cooking times depend a bit on the type of pressue cooker? We bought a second hand Kuhn Rikon (a bargain on eBay) and that has high and low pressure measures. For cannilini beans (white beans of the longer variety) we bring up to high pressure and cooked for 6 mins and then cool quickly (running around the edge with cold water until pressure back to zero). We've tended to cook kidney beans for 10 mins (after soaking) and before putting in chilli. So perhaps we need to rethink that one?

@Felix I made Boston Baked Beans over the holidays. Haricot Beans (so smaller white beans) and lots of other ingredients in the cooker with the raw beans. Perhaps because of the extra spices, seasoning, etc. it took a lot longer. (Although far less than the 2-2.5 hours in the original recipe). We just kept on taking off heat, testing, building pressure again. Overall maybe 15 mins + another 15 mins after beans were done to cook with lid off to reduce the sauce which seemed to have been barely absorbed at all.

[jacob]

@slowth - Good point! The slowcooker will usually have them boiling/simmering for 8-12 hours. I've never had any symptoms of poisoning.

@Felix - Reduce soaking time to 6-8 hours. 24 hours is excessive.

@saving - Pressure is proportional to cooking temperature. Higher pressure = shorter cooking time. My K-R came with all sorts of instructions for setting the pressure level. I just ignore that. I bring it to the highest pressure (level 2). Then take it off the stove and put it in bed under a thick blanket. The residual thermal capacity then cooks the beans the rest of the way. 6-10 minutes of cook time sounds really short. I usually go for at least 30 mins.

[Felix]

@saving and jacob: Thanks, I'll try tomorrow. Hopefully no more hummus.

[KevinW]

I just follow the cooking instructions that come with Kuhn Rikon cookers.

http://fantes.com/manuals/duromatic-pre ... charts.pdf

[slowth]

@Jacob: If I'm honest, I've never cooked in a crockpot, which I will rectify soon. I thought everyone cooked on low-medium for a long time. I agree, if the beans are boiling in there for that long, then no problem.

@Felix: The long soak time has me thinking about sprouting. Does anyone sprout their beans? It's supposed to ramp up the nutrients, but I can't find any studies.

[dragoncar]

I just follow the cooking instructions that come with Kuhn Rikon cookers.

http://fantes.com/manuals/duromatic-pre ... charts.pdf

@slowth - Good point! The slowcooker will usually have them boiling/simmering for My K-R came with all sorts of instructions for setting the pressure level. I just ignore that. I bring it to the highest pressure (level 2).

I was wondering about this. What is the reason not to bring it to the highest pressure? I mean what's the worst that can happen? I imagine some foods will get mushy right? Is there a chance certain items will get tougher at a higher pressure?

I really like Amy's Kitchen lentils -- there is something about how soft they are! But I've never been able to reproduce this texture or flavor. Any tips?

[Felix]

I was wondering about this. What is the reason not to bring it to the highest pressure? I mean what's the worst that can happen? I imagine some foods will get mushy right? Is there a chance certain items will get tougher at a higher pressure?

Well, beware of hummus.

[KevinW]

Yeah I don't know, but if I had to guess I'd say that some foods are so delicate that the amount of time it takes to bring them up to high pressure and then cool down and release will always overcook them.

[saving-10-years]

Yeah I don't know, but if I had to guess I'd say that some foods are so delicate that the amount of time it takes to bring them up to high pressure and then cool down and release will always overcook them.

Fish, according to Nigel Slater http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle ... er-recipes.

Warning: this link includes recipes which are really not ERE-friendly (unless I suppose you shot the duck yourself).