beans without gas

[annnt]

Has anyone successfully cooked a pot of beans in the thermowell? If so, share your secret please.
I just tried a pot and cooked for 30 minutes on full gas then 6+ hours without gas, and they were only 1/2 cooked (now they're in the pressure cooker on a burner in hopes of readiness by dinner time). I followed the gas on time from a navy bean soup recipe in my Chambers cookbook.
Ann

[treatmaker]

Ann,

Had to laugh when I saw the topic. What a play on words! I'm going to make beans today so I'll let you know how they come out.

There might be some other reasons that the beans didn't soften...salt in the water will make them tough as well as putting something in that has a high acid base.

Treatmaker

[annnt]

Hi Virginia;
I did have salt and spices added as well as a sauted onion. I'm a little hesitant to do much acid in those aluminum pots for very long. After an hour in the pressure cooker the beans were great. Thanks for trying out some beans yourself.
Ann

[berlyn]

I have done frozen lima beans. I didn't go by the cookbook, but it took a good 15 minutes of gas and minimum of 2 hours with heat off.
What kind of beans did you cook, dry or frozen??
Did you soak them over night??
Could your altitude have bearing??

Also, loved your kitchen!!
Berlyn

[ha_asfan]

Berlyn, I'll bet you are right...the altitude ! Unless the beans were old or the water too salted, it must be the altitude. Having said that, we are finding that almost all of our standard old recipes take substantitally longer to bake in the Chambers oven...and here in Detroit, we are 700' [give or take] above sea level. The biggest adjustment so far is the timing........

[annnt]

They were dried beans, but I don't know what kind (my husband bought them in the bulk section of the health food store and didn't make note). They were sort of reddish, but not kidney, pinto or anasazi beans. The recipe for the lima bean soup recipe says "no need to soak beans" and I didn't. Our altitude is 6,200'. Maybe I should try gas on for 1 hour instead of 1/2 hour and see what that does (but not till this batch gets eaten!).
Ann