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Monday, March 29, 2010

Baked Bean 101


Here is a fantastic article, I cannot describe this any better nor would I try. Baked Beans are such a wonderful earthy homey dish they deserve a re look as a family classic. Here is Cook’s Illustrated break down of the most consistent issues arising from homemade Baked Beans.

Cook’s Illustrated, October 1996, Vol. 22, Page 14-15
By Mark Zanger (Reference)

You cannot cook these beans quickly. It is a long, slow process. The simpler the recipe, the better the results.

Salt pork: the fatter, the better – not the meatier type! Remove rind.


Bacon: meaty, smoke flavor - freeze slightly to allow slicing & dicing.


Dice salt pork and bacon, then fry to render fat

Small white beans, not Great Northern, and omit overnight soaking.


Food Science

Beans on Acid -- Legumes and Levels of Ph

Have you ever cooked beans for hours and found they failed to soften? Chalky and tough-skinned, they might as well be raw. A few phone calls to experts and some research pointed me to the prime suspect: acid. Food scientists universally agree that high acidity can interfere with the softening of the cellulose-based bean cells, causing them to remain hard no matter how long they cook.

Alkalinity, on the other hand, has the opposite effect on legumes. Alkalines make the bean starches more soluble and thus cause the beans to cook faster. (Older bean recipes often included a pinch of baking soda for its alkalinity, but because baking soda has been shown to destroy valuable nutrients, few contemporary recipes suggest this shortcut.) The effect of acids and alkalines on beans certainly explained the warnings I found in some recipes against the use of too much vinegar. Still, while it all sounded good in theory, it made little practical sense to me. Molasses is acidic, but it didn't seem to affect the cooking of the beans in most of my tests. What I really wanted to know were the following: At what pH level would there be a negative impact on the beans? Could a splash of vinegar spoil the pot, or would it take a whole bottle? How could I relate pH levels to the everyday ingredients I might use to flavor beans?

It was time to put some beans to the acid test. I cooked four batches of small white beans in water altered with vinegar to reach pH levels of 3, 5, 7, and 9. I brought them to a boil, reduced the heat to a low simmer, and tested the beans every 30 minutes for texture and doneness. The beans cooked at a pH of 3 (the most acidic) remained crunchy and tough-skinned despite being allowed to cook 30 minutes longer than the other three batches. The beans cooked at pHs of 5, 7, and 9 showed few differences, although the 9 pH batch finished a few minutes ahead of the 7 pH batch and about 20 minutes ahead of the 5 pH batch.

Acidity, then, must be relatively high to have any significant impact on beans. I had to add a whole cup of vinegar to the pot -- much more than would be reasonable in most recipes -- to reach a pH of 3.

How does my Boston baked beans recipe fit into this scenario? The combined ingredients -- just before baking -- had a pH of 4.8. The beans might cook a little faster with the acidic molasses and mustard reserved until the end, but the flavor would lack the depth developed through slow cooking -- a trade-off I wasn't willing to make. If in making this recipe you are plagued with crunchy beans, you may have extremely hard water or a stale batch of beans. Hard water, recognizable by mineral deposits in pots and plumbing and greenish rings around the drains in porcelain tubs and sinks, contains high levels of calcium and magnesium. Calcium, for reasons not yet fully understood, toughens cellulose. Your safest bet would be to use bottled water.

Stale beans are

impossible to

detect until cooked,

but it's too late by

then -- they will

never soften.

Recap

Molasses = Acidity (+ vinegar, mustard)
The pH level is a measure of acidity vs. alkalinity.
A pH (3) Acidic > undercooked, hard beans.
A pH (9) Alkaline > beans exploded, mushy, overcooked.
Bean cell walls made of cellulose, hemicellulose & pectin. In presence of acidic element, hemicellulose doesn’t break down as readily as beans cook, leading to hard beans. In alkaline environment, pectin dissolves weakening cell walls leading to mushy results

Baking soda (alkaline), added to recipe, does significantly decrease cooking time by almost 1/2 > overcooked beans exploded, starchy, lacked flavor.

By omitting acidic ingredients until the end of cooking > beans cooked quickly but beans light in color, have less flavor, not worth time-savings in long run.

Avoid stale beans, if possible, by buying them from a store, which moves their supply and replaces them often. The recipe, which I have used over the years, turned out hard as a rock beans the last time I cooked it. I thought it was the salt and began to attempt recipe revision. The error in my thinking was that I had done that recipe many times successfully so the salt content alone could not possibly be the reason for the failure. The acidity also could not have been the problem for the same reason. The problem was, “Stale beans are impossible to detect until cooked, but it's too late by then -- they will never soften.” So stop blaming the salt; blame the stale beans. And always start with the freshest beans you can find to prevent this from happening to you.

This would seem to discourage using the pressure cooker to cook beans. I would still like to try that method. To date I haven’t.

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