
Don't soak your dried beans - yonibot
http://www.latimes.com/food/dailydish/la-dd-dont-soak-dried-beans-20140911-story.html
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spodek
Want to drop your bean preparation time down to about two minutes?

Cook them in a rice cooker. Just put them in with about 3:1 water to bean,
press the button, and it turns itself off when they're done. Cooking time is
still about an hour, but preparation time is a couple minutes.

I add olive oil, salt, and herbs (meat eaters can add bacon, ham, or
whatever), which may add another minute to preparation time. You can make
several meals worth of beans with a few minutes' effort and a dollar or two of
ingredients.

I recommend the Hitachi Chime-o-matic if they still make them.

~~~
haroldp
In a pressure cooker, time is under a half hour.

I live at high altitude, so no amount of time just boiling in a pot will ever
soften dry black beans.

~~~
bunderbunder
We've taken to pressure canning dried beans in pint jars. All that, plus the
end product is shelf-stable so you can build up a variety of pre-cooked beans
in the pantry for convenience.

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curlyquote
I was under the assumption that uncooked beans contain enzyme inhibitors
(which make digestion more difficult), and germinating the beans before
cooking reduces the effectiveness of these inhibitors.

This article isn't nearly as scientific as I hoped it would be.

~~~
analog31
Perhaps germinating the beans also triggers a process similar to malting of
barley for beer making. It breaks down some complex sugars, making them easier
to ferment, and perhaps easier to digest as well.

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wtbob
I like to soak beans for over 24 hours in order to let them start to ferment
(lactobacillus, not yeast) a little. It can be tricky to get the right timing,
but I think that the slight tang is quite tasty.

~~~
dj-wonk
Speaking of bacteria and beans, if you eat sprouts (uncooked), you might want
to look at
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bean_sprout#Bacterial_infectio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bean_sprout#Bacterial_infection)

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Havoc
I thought it's a safety issue. Not sure which type but one of the beans
definitely have to be soaked.

~~~
freehunter
Kidney beans should _definitely_ be soaked prior to cooking. The FDA
recommends soaking dry kidney beans for 5 hours then cooking them for half an
hour to dissolve the toxin they contain. It takes a surprisingly low number of
beans to induce the toxicity, as well.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phaseolus_vulgaris#Toxicity](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phaseolus_vulgaris#Toxicity)

~~~
bstpierre
The information in that wikipedia article seems incomplete or contradictory.
It says that boiling for 10m degrades the toxin. If that's the case, why is
cold soaking for 5h necessary?

~~~
freehunter
10 minutes of boiling for regular kidney beans will degrade the toxin. If
they're dried, however, you need to soak them in order to rehydrate them.

"ten minutes at boiling point (100°C, 212°F) are sufficient to degrade the
toxin. For dry beans... soak at least 5 hours."

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califield
I make really delicious slow cooker black beans every Sunday, following this
recipe I found online:

[http://cafejohnsonia.com/2013/02/how-to-slow-cooker-black-
be...](http://cafejohnsonia.com/2013/02/how-to-slow-cooker-black-beans.html)

She recommends skipping the soak and I haven't noticed any problems yet!

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mrfusion
It says they only last a week in the freezer?? I'd think they'd last at least
a month or two, no?

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ZoF
I think it was just poorly worded and the one week timing would be if you
stored them in the fridge.

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o_nate
I do agree that unsoaked beans are more flavorful, but I disagree with the
assertion that "soaking does absolutely nothing to reduce the gas-producing
properties of beans". I've eaten them both ways for years, and in my
experience, unsoaked beans definitely produce more flatulence. The exception
to that is pressure-cooking. Pressure-cooked unsoaked beans do not seem to
produce any more flatulence than soaked. I'm not sure the scientific reason
for that.

~~~
caio1982
I know this is anecdotal but yeah, I have been eating pressure-cooked beans
for 30 years now and I don't even recall the last time I had gases because of
beans. I don't even get why people have problems with beans in the first
place. I assume it is only because pressure cookers are not common in some
countries.

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namecast
Everyone here is mentioning the "bean flatulence" effect that soaking
apparently prevents. Adding my two cents: if you take the article's advice
specifically for red kidney beans, you'll have bigger problems than gas.

[http://www.foodreference.com/html/artredkidneybeanpoisoning....](http://www.foodreference.com/html/artredkidneybeanpoisoning.html)

Nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. Ugh.

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logfromblammo
Title is misleading, as the article recommends not soaking beans in _cold_
water.

Those of us who cover the dry beans in water, bring to a boil, drain, soak in
warm water, drain again, then cook as required by the recipe are vindicated
later in the article. That's when it mentions that the fermentable
oligosaccharides responsible for bean-related flatus are largely removed by
that method.

If you're going to soak uncooked beans in water cooler than pasteurization
temperature for any length of time, it would be wise to inoculate your water
with a safe fermentation bacterium, such as by adding a blob of yogurt. That
will reduce the amount of _internal_ fermentation that happens later, and if
you opt to sprout the beans instead of cooking them, the safe bacteria may be
able to outcompete any pathogenic bacteria that may have remained on the
surface of the dry beans.

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serve_yay
For larger beans like kidneys, I disagree. But for split lentils, various
dals, navy beans, etc, you can get away with not soaking them. One thing I
have found (and Cooks Illustrated concurs) is that you should salt both the
soaking water and the cooking water.

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anateus
Here's a paper on PubMed that found soaking reduces oligosaccharide content
(that's what gets eaten by your intestinal flora to produce flatunelence) but
not nutritional content:
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12489819](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12489819)

Eliminating sugars and starches likely impacts both the texture and flavor,
however. Likely negatively.

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tobylane
>Don't soak your dried beans! Now even the cool kids agree

Apparently socks and sandals are in fashion this year. Is this a phase the
cool kids are going through or is it science?

Including heinz five bean, I think I've had 8-10 different beans in the last
year. Which bean is this article so scientifically talking about.

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tdicola
I am genuinely curious, why is this post on Hackernews' front page? Yes I know
this type of comment is typically frowned upon (and will happily accept the
downvotes), but seriously--a story about cooking beans with some vague science
and anecdotes?

~~~
briantakita
It's ironic that something named "Hacker News" focuses so much on rationalism
& observable "proofs".

This article seems to be in the spirit of a Hacker. Vague science & anecdotes
on something that seems to work is a pathway to discoveries & innovations.

~~~
thrill
There's a difference between hacking and hand waving. One of them generally
has some empirical evidence to present afterwards.

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benihana
I thought the reason to soak the beans was not for texture or flavor, but to
make the easier to digest. Ya know, that whole 'beans beans are good for your
heart' thing?

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code_duck
I've cooked beans almost every day for years and my experiences are not at all
in line with what the amateur in this article thinks he has discovered.

~~~
zachberger
Can you elaborate? How do you cook your beans?

~~~
caio1982
I also read "amateur" all over the article. In Brazil people have been cooking
beans for centuries and honestly I cannot even understand his doubts or
questions. In the past we used to soak beans overnight just because otherwise
they would take ages to cook in regular pots (and some people still do that
when they only have regular pots to cook with). But that was it, just to speed
things up. No (real) difference in flavor, digestion etc.

Nearly every house in Brazil has a pressure cooker. Even in favelas everybody
has one. I would say 90% of them were bought just to cook beans every other
day. The basic brazilian way is to simply cook the beans in the pressure
cooker with nothing else but water. Then we it reaches the biting point you
want (between 20 and 40 minutes, depending on the beans) you take a big spoon
of that, smash it in another pan with garlic and some chopped onions and oil
and then put it back into the cooker, plus salt to taste. And that is it.
Nothing more.

If the whole soaking or cooking debate was real, specially considering the gas
issue he mentions, I think Brazil would be the biggest polluter of methane in
the world by the way.

EDIT: grammar

~~~
caio1982
Seems that indeed we are the biggest polluter of methane in the world, unless
I am getting this wrong: [http://www.helgilibrary.com/indicators/index/bean-
consumptio...](http://www.helgilibrary.com/indicators/index/bean-consumption-
per-capita)

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maxk42
Please do not spread this incorrect information!

The reason you soak beans is not to improve the flavor. It is to dissolve the
flavorless and indigestible sugars that give you massive bean-gas when you eat
them. If you soak beans well before cooking -- then change the water and cook
them -- then change the water again and rinse them well before finishing the
cooking process -- you will have a tasty, nutritious treat that doesn't make
your ass explode!

That's right! You can have totally fart-free beans. Only most restaurants and
chefs are totally oblivious to this fact, so you can't really trust prepared
beans any time you go out. There should be a certified-fart-free label for the
restaurants that really know what's up.

~~~
heywire
I've also always heard that, but isn't that one of the myths that the article
supposedly disproved?

~~~
o_nate
I don't think the article disproved it. In my experience, soaking does
definitely reduce the flatulence effects.

~~~
heywire
True, it didn't disprove it. I was merely going based on the quote,
"...suffice it to say that even with almost all of the alpha-galactosides
gone, there wasn't a consistent marked decrease in human flatulence." They
went on to say: "We reduced the alpha-galactoside content by 90% but we
haven't done anything to dietary fiber," says Gray, "and dietary fiber
produces similar effects."

