I was taught to throw out (or put in the compost) the water that you had soaked the dry beans in. And use fresh water to cook them. I believe the thought was that if you tossed the soaking water the end product would have less gas. Here in Mexico they don’t throw out the soaking water ( and the beans look beautiful) and there is no gas. But, they do use an herb called epazote which is for removing the gas from beans. So, what do you folks do?
Soaking removes a lot of starch from the beans. The excess starch is the cause of the flatulence. The herb is a caminative, which reduces the production of excess gas. I’ve heard that frequent eating of beans will cause your digestive system to be more effective reducing the amount of gas.
The other advantage of soaking is that it reduces the cooking time.
I rinse 3 times before leaving my beans overnite and then I rinse a couple of times before I cook them the next day and I still get epic gas. YMMV.
I soak overnight and then rinse before cooking them in new water or stock. Recipes I make this way seem to produce notably less flatulence than recipes made with canned beans.
I’ve never cooked with dry beans and not used the overnight soak then rinse method, so no idea how the gassiness compares with those.
Soak and rinse. The “fast soak” method never really works for me. I don’t mind gas, so that isn’t a factor.
I soak and rinse, mostly because TTWWADI. I’ve done the fast-soak a couple of times, and the beans taste just as good. But I’m a traditionalist.
I posted another thread a while ago, but I’ll not it here: The SO made some pinto beans seasoned only with salt and liquid smoke. They really tasted as if they had meat in them.
I don’t soak, I do throw out the cooking water.
I cook up a large pot of beans every week. Sometimes I soak, sometimes I don’t. I can’t see a difference in the results.
Epazote has a wonderful flavor to it, but if you are using it, make sure the flavor is compatible with the rest of the seasonings you plan to use.
Another “gas relief” tradition is to use KOMBU in the soaking/cooking water. This is a dried seaweed you can find in Asian ethnic markets and health food stores. Use a piece about three inches long and include in the soaking water. When you drain the beans the next morning, keep the Kombu in the pot, and then add your cooking water/broth and other ingredients. It will disintegrate while cooking, and not add anything appreciable to the flavor, except a negligible amount of sodium.
~VOW
I usually forget to soak, and I’ve never really noticed a difference in gas production.
Same here. Overnight soak, “fast” soak, or no presoak, it all turns out the same for me. The only difference is cooking time between soaked and unsoaked. None of the “anti-gas” herbs (like epazote or savory) do jack shit for me.
I do the fast soak because I can never plan ahead far enough. It’s easy, it’s fast, it works. I’ve never noticed any lessening of gas, though, in any case.
I put dry beans and water on the crockpot and cook on high for six hours, then discard whatever cooking liquid is left. Don’t seem to have problems with gas.
What?
Thanks for your replies, troops. Rather than start a new thread, I have a tangent. I was taught never to salt the beans until they were cooked tender. Reason being is that if you salt them before, they will be tough. What do you folks think?
Disproven. It’s acid that makes beans tough, not salt. In fact, salting the water is the only way to really get the beans salted, as opposed to just the liquid. Cook’s Illustrated did a test on this a few years ago.
They take much longer to cook, I found that out. To me, not salting something (at least a little) at the start of cooking seems counter-intuitive so it was an easy mistake. Once. I don’t salt everything, but definitely soups, stews, etc. Thought of beans the same way, but not after that.
That’s The Way We’ve Aways Done It.
Yup. I have a slow-cooker Indian chickpeas (kabuli chana) recipe that starts from dry chickpeas and includes tomatoes. It takes 14 hours on high to cook through. Throw plain dry chickpeas and water in a crockpot with some salt and you can cook them in a couple hours. I tried this recipe at about 10-11 hours and they were definitely still undercooked.
I guess chemically speaking I don’t understand what the difference between salt and acid could be; they all dissociate into ions. Not disputing Cook’s findings, just wondering what the whole story is. One specific ion does it, I guess?