Baked beans from scratch failure...

[indaswamp]

I've cooked baked beans lots of times.. never had a failure- until now. I normally use navy beans, but a buddy brought a bag of great northern white beans to the camp beginning of the hunting season this past fall and we never cooked them so they came home when we packed up once the season was over. Time to cook 'em.

I soaked the beans over night for 12 hours. Got the cowboy beans going @9am in a 300* oven. Let 'em go for 3 hours then pulled them out for a stir and into the 225* smokehouse with the ribs to get some smoke on them for a couple hours. Stirred 'em again then put them back in the oven. And they cooked for another 7 hours and STILL had some hard all the way through with most of the skins still super hard. I'm perplexed....never had that happen before, and I've cooked many a bean in my day. I ended up having to throw them out-the sugars scorched with the long cooking time and made the dish bitter. Nothing I could do to save them.

I'll tell ya what though-next time I'm gonna cook the beans FIRST, THEN make the cowboy beans! And I'll NEVER use great northern beans again!

Any ideas what went wrong???

 

[noboundaries]

Two things come to mind. Really old beans basically won't cook. They stay hard. Which reminds me of the second thing. I once tried to cook beans my wife used several times to bake pie crusts. I didn't know that's what she had used them for. They stayed hard too.

 

[indaswamp]

Two things come to mind. Really old beans basically won't cook. They stay hard. Which reminds me of the second thing. I once tried to cook beans my wife used several times to bake pie crusts. I didn't know that's what she had used them for. They stayed hard too.

Gotta be it noboundaries.... I coulda used these in a slingshot even after soaking and 12 hours of cooking.

Cooking the pie beans....LOL!! Yea I bet those were rock hard too!!!!

 

[indaswamp]

Glad I was cooking for just me tonight.....

 

[daveomak]

Yep ... Old beans... I found a bag of beans in the waaaay back part of the cupboard... Soaked over night... they didn't swell one iota... skins didn't slip off.... nothing happened... so I threw them in water and on the stove they went.. 6 hours later they hadn't swelled up... I could have , and should have, used them to fill potholes in the road... they'd still be there....

 

[indaswamp]

I could have , and should have, used them to fill potholes in the road... they'd still be there....

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

 

[myownidaho]

Old beans for sure. Cooking with salt, tomatoes just makes old beans even tougher to soften up.

 

[indaswamp]

Yea, next time I'm cooking the beans first BEFORE I make the cowboy beans...

 

[tallbm]

Interesting. I would have loved to see how they held up in a pressure cooker for about 2-3 hours... you know just for curiosity sake :)

 

[johnmeyer]

Two things.

First, here is a really good summary by Christopher Kimball (founder of "Cook's Illustrated") of bean chemistry. I've had a lot more failures than you when trying to cook beans from scratch, and the hints he provided in this blog really helped me a lot. Here's the link:

Cooking Beans 101

The second thing is what tallbm mentioned: the pressure cooker. I am most definitely not a vegetarian, but if I were, I would use my pressure cooker every day. Among the long list of things it does better than anything else is its ability to pretty much guarantee that your beans will get cooked all the way through. If you aren't pressure cooking beans, you should consider trying it: get them cooked, and then put them in your best smoked bean recipe.

 

[indaswamp]

Good read, thanks John.

 

[johnmeyer]

Good read, thanks John.

De nada! :D

 

[SonnyE]

I've cooked baked beans lots of times.. never had a failure- until now. I normally use navy beans, but a buddy brought a bag of great northern white beans to the camp beginning of the hunting season this past fall and we never cooked them so they came home when we packed up once the season was over. Time to cook 'em.

I soaked the beans over night for 12 hours. Got the cowboy beans going @9am in a 300* oven. Let 'em go for 3 hours then pulled them out for a stir and into the 225* smokehouse with the ribs to get some smoke on them for a couple hours. Stirred 'em again then put them back in the oven. And they cooked for another 7 hours and STILL had some hard all the way through with most of the skins still super hard. I'm perplexed....never had that happen before, and I've cooked many a bean in my day. I ended up having to throw them out-the sugars scorched with the long cooking time and made the dish bitter. Nothing I could do to save them.

I'll tell ya what though-next time I'm gonna cook the beans FIRST, THEN make the cowboy beans! And I'll NEVER use great northern beans again!

Any ideas what went wrong???

I think I see the problem here Inda,
Those are Great Northern Beans.
You can NEVER trust them damned Yankees to get it right. :confused::mad::p:eek:

Stick with what you know works. ;)

 

[Gwanger]

I think I see the problem here Inda,
Those are Great Northern Beans.
You can NEVER trust them damned Yankees to get it right. :confused::mad::p:eek:

Stick with what you know works. ;)

are you still angry for losing the war.

 

[SonnyE]

are you still angry for losing the war.

No. That was W - A - Y before my time.
I was teasing my friend in Louisiana.

Are you a Boston Baked Beans fan? :rolleyes:

 

[ernest_o]

I am planning an electric smokehouse build and look forward to converting my family favorite baked beans recipe into a version that perfects in my smokehouse. I DON'T like mushy baked beans. I start with Van Camps Pork N Beans. They used to have a chunk of fat in each can, but no longer. Out of the can they are cooked and pretty much the right consistency already. I have gotten the best results by discarding some of the liquid, setting the beans aside and cooking a sauce on the stove top until it is thick enough and then adding the beans back in a little while before serving. I know smoking purist NEVER use liquid smoke but if you don't have a smoker, you don't have any other choice. I add Wright's Liquid Smoke to the reserved bean liquid, dark brown sugar an assortment of spices and other ingredients. When I convert my recipe, I will replace the liquid smoke with a trip in the smoker. Once I finish the smokehouse and perfect my recipe, I will post it.

 

[SonnyE]

I am planning an electric smokehouse build and look forward to converting my family favorite baked beans recipe into a version that perfects in my smokehouse. I DON'T like mushy baked beans. I start with Van Camps Pork N Beans. They used to have a chunk of fat in each can, but no longer. Out of the can they are cooked and pretty much the right consistency already. I have gotten the best results by discarding some of the liquid, setting the beans aside and cooking a sauce on the stove top until it is thick enough and then adding the beans back in a little while before serving. I know smoking purist NEVER use liquid smoke but if you don't have a smoker, you don't have any other choice. I add Wright's Liquid Smoke to the reserved bean liquid, dark brown sugar an assortment of spices and other ingredients. When I convert my recipe, I will replace the liquid smoke with a trip in the smoker. Once I finish the smokehouse and perfect my recipe, I will post it.

I remember that chunk. Damn shame they changed it.
My Dad said that was a piece of "Sow Belly", a nice piece of bacon fat.
Maybe you can get back to the authenticity with a piece of pork fat for flavor? :rolleyes:

 

[MeatSkull]

I also use a pressure cooker, I'm not patient these days.

 

[ernest_o]

Two things.

First, here is a really good summary by Christopher Kimball (founder of "Cook's Illustrated") of bean chemistry. I've had a lot more failures than you when trying to cook beans from scratch, and the hints he provided in this blog really helped me a lot. Here's the link:

Cooking Beans 101

The second thing is what tallbm mentioned: the pressure cooker. I am most definitely not a vegetarian, but if I were, I would use my pressure cooker every day. Among the long list of things it does better than anything else is its ability to pretty much guarantee that your beans will get cooked all the way through. If you aren't pressure cooking beans, you should consider trying it: get them cooked, and then put them in your best smoked bean recipe.

I found Kimball's explanation of bean chemistry very interesting. When I was a kid we had Navy Beans (Great Northern) and cornbread quite often. My mother always soaked the beans overnight in a baking soda/water solution, she said the soda reduced the gas. She added much more than a pinch of soda, probably half of a box (chuckle). I never understood what that did until I read Kimball's research, thanks again for posting it!

 

[johnmeyer]

I found Kimball's explanation of bean chemistry very interesting. When I was a kid we had Navy Beans (Great Northern) and cornbread quite often. My mother always soaked the beans overnight in a baking soda/water solution, she said the soda reduced the gas. She added much more than a pinch of soda, probably half of a box (chuckle). I never understood what that did until I read Kimball's research, thanks again for posting it!

Glad you found it useful. It sure helped me overcome my perpetual dry bean cooking failures.