Back to beans.
Canned Beans -bad for you. Dead beans, not as nutrious and harder to digest resulting in musical fruit. :) Improperly prepared so as to not release as much phytic acid as with soaked beans. BPA leaches into canned food.
Soaked beans- take everything above and make it opposite. ;) Or I can do it for you, LIVE beans, more nutrients, no chemicals, more phytic acid released out of them, easier to digest. I have read the longer you soak the easier they digest. I also read to soak for days... I didn't try that my first time around. Though I did try to keep the temp close to 140 degrees, I read a couple different places to do that. I also, to help with some fermenting, put in a little vinegar. I used white, cause that's what I had, I know I need to get some organic apple cider vinegar but, one thing at a time. I also read to cook them low and slow. I sorta did that.
I decided to try my first bean soakage with black beans, it's the bean we use the most and I usually buy 2-3 cans a week all swimming in BPA goodness.
One 16 oz bag of beans gave me 4 - 1.5 cup + (1 cup I used the day of) bags of beans I put some in the freezer, I put a bag of them next to a can a beans and it looked about right.
My process: (that may be subject to change but I was pretty happy with the intial turnout )
Rinse beans, put in my crockpot, covered them with water about 2 inches above them.
*CORRECTION* from when I posted yesterday, I filled my crockpot with water 2inches from the TOP of the crockpot. I realized I posted wrong info as I got some great northern beans soaking, just now upstairs, so I raced down here because ONE person maybe just tried to soak beans in not enough water!!! NNOOOO!!
Added a tablespoon of vinegar, I read you could do 2 but I didn't want the taste to be weird. Next time I will try 2 because I couldn't taste anything at all.
Turned the crockpot onto warm. I checked the temp as it got going with my food thermometer. I wanted to keep it at 140 degrees, I ended up putting the lid adjar and that kept them at about 150 and I was happy with that. I let them be for about 8.5 hours.
I then drained and rinsed the beans, put new water in with a tsp of salt, which I will double next time. covered with water above 2 inches again and cooked them high for 4 hours. And that was it. Not too bad. Next time to avoid the all day affair I will just soak them the night before or who knows maybe give them a full 24 and then cook them in the morning for the 4 hours. You may now gaze upon my beautiful beans :
As to the gas question, I had some tonight, so I will have to see if somehow things feel different. :)
Disclaimer: I am a rookie and NOT a professional bean soaker, are there better methods out there? Probably but out of my research, this is what I came up that for me I thought was fairly effective and in the range of work I was willing to do. I haven't gotten to the point where I want to soak for days and change out water and all that. Maybe someday.
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