My new approach to cooking beans ..

Don't use water .. use water that has already been somewhere before .. I use potato water, turn it off pull the potatoes out and I add one tsp salt, one tblsp cumin, two each of Arbol and Guajillo chili stemmed and broken, seeds in and a pour of oil. Let this soak until cool .. add more cumin and reheat to just under a boil and add your beans and perhaps more water, stir and let soak.

You are now feeding your beans the rich moisture to swell them. Even if you dry them after they are cooked .. they still taste good.

The smells of Old Mexico coming off your pot will wake up the house if cooked early in the morning when you are up starting a fire. Cumin unwraps chili. Don't use it .. the chili stay unwrapped.

Sourdough rolls are good with these beans, I use Peruano.

I'm presuming you cook in the seasoned liquid without soaking/cooking in plain water?
What kind of beans do you use? I cook with red kidney beans a lot and they really need soaking and water changing or they can be pretty farty.
Turtle and blackeye beans seem ok though.

Yes, Pippimac. I soak in the seasoned water. It makes all the difference in the world. You soak all that goodness into the beans. They are good tasting drained and dried. I couldn't say that before. I had sorry beans half the time.

The Peruano is a yellow bean that soaks quick .. two hours here at 3,800 feet .. and cooks quick .. two hours. They are called Maya Coba's also.

I use the pot liquor from greens to cook my beans (or rice), usually along with home made chicken stock. I just hate to see good nutrient filled water go to waste.

Ref: A thousand miles of Mustanging by Ben K. Green.

Ben tells of being in Old Mexico and going from one mountain range to another across a desert which was unfamiliar to him.

On leaving a good water hole .. he made more flour tortillas than he could eat that day .. some for two days afterwards .. dumping more beans than he could eat .. onto a flat more or less clean rock and picking his dried beans up and bagging them.

It ended up with one dry camp .. one with horrible water .. and good water and grass on the third day, and he let the mustangs he was driving smell out the water along the way. He took his trail mix with him.

In the states .. driving cattle or horses a long way and knowing the water holes .. he did the same thing going into storms. Cooked up extra in case he needed it.