Another thing to keep in mind is that acidity (including
tomatos) will prevent beans from cooking.

This is in fact why you can cook a batch of chili for
a really long time without the beans turning to mush.

Steve

Many thanks for your responses. I have saved some of them for my experiment. It
is interesting that some say the crock pot works on pintos and others say it
doesn't. Julio (who is adopted just recently) says when he was a kid they
cooked them in the CP all the time. Anyway I will give it a whirl...soak
overnight tonight and then CP them tomorrow on high so I can keep an eye on
them. Will post results. I have a new CP and the temps on it seem higher than
the temps on my old one that I bought years ago and which refused to die. I
bought a new one just because the old one looked ratty after so many years of
use.

Thanks again.