Couple of notes about dried beans:
- Most directions will tell you to soak the beans overnight, or provide a “quick soak” method. This isn’t really necessary, if you have time to start cooking the beans early. If you can put the beans on the stove a few hours before serving time, you can skip soaking. Just be sure to monitor the water levels and make sure that the beans are completely covered until they reach the desired doneness.
- Wait until the beans are almost done before you salt the water. This is the point in time when the skin of the beans is soft and permeable enough for the salt to get into the bean and start to season it. Salt the water too early and it will concentrate as the water evaporates, but won’t penetrate the skin of the beans, leaving an over-seasoned broth and an under-seasoned bean.
- All the tricks for adding various substances to the soaking water (baking soda, etc.) to reduce gassiness after eating beans are poppycock. Beans contain a carbohydrate that cannot be digested in the body. This carbohydrate passes through our system where it is broken down by bacteria in the large intestine. The byproduct of that bacterial process is gas. Adding stuff to the beans doesn’t change the fact that we cannot digest that carbohydrate. The only thing that will genuinely (sometimes, but not always) help with gassiness is taking an over-the-counter supplement (like Beano) that includes a dosage of the enzyme necessary to break down these carbohydrates in your stomach, allowing less of it to pass through to the large intestines to be broken down by bacteria.