Lynne wrote:

> Beans not old, no hard water and I'm about 20 feet above sea level, so no
> altitude with which to contend.
>
> I tried the recipe because it was a slow cooker (crockpot) recipe. My mom
> had surgery last week and is about an hour away. Going back and forth
> makes it hard to have a home cooked meal. Decided to try the crockpot and
> ended up with hard beans. I've cooked beans from their dried state plus
> only water in the crock pot with no soaking and been very successful on
> many occasions.
>
> So, either I bought some freaky dried beans at the store or as stated
> above the sugar and vinegar were preserving the beans hardness while I was
> trying to cook them.

Oh! You hadn't mentioned before that it was a crockpot recipe. I've had
similar failures trying to cook beans in a crockpot, so anymore I'll only
cook them on the stovetop or in the oven. I'm guessing that the crockpot
doesn't get hot enough. (I know, boiling water is 212°F regardless of how
fast the water is boiling. But I also know that cooking beans in the
crockpot doesn't seem to work.)

Bob