Jump to content
  • Welcome to the eG Forums, a service of the eGullet Society for Culinary Arts & Letters. The Society is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of the culinary arts. These advertising-free forums are provided free of charge through donations from Society members. Anyone may read the forums, but to post you must create a free account.

hard water and baking soda


melamed

Recommended Posts

How hard is it to cook a pot of beans? Apparently very hard and I lost all confidence in cooking beans because even after hours of cooking and doing everything the text books told me to do (no salt, no acid, fresh and not old beans etc) I always ended up throwing it away.

That is, until I found out why I was having all this trouble. So simple! I was using

hard water and this was the main culprit. The solution: either filter the water or use a bit of baking soda. Baking soda binds to the calcium and magnesium ions in the hard water making them unable to interact with the beans. Only a small amount should be used when soaking the beans and this water is dumped before cooking. I also add more during cooking only if the beans still remain hard. Too much baking soda has an aftertaste and also degrades some of the vitamins (B's, I think).

All those living in soft water areas don't know how blessed you are.

I dismissed baking soda as an old wives tale but sometimes they have the best advice

Cheers, Sarah

http://sarahmelamed.com/

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think I didn't make the hard water connection because I sometimes would use

filtered water, and wasn't consistant using one water source. In anycase I found almost nothing on the subject because I assume most people have normal water, without grains of sand coming out of the faucet, and the problem never came up.

Question is, how does hard water effect other things that I cook? for example, how does it affect the flavour or texture?

Cheers, Sarah

http://sarahmelamed.com/

Link to comment
Share on other sites

India has many hard water areas and Indians are mostly vegans

The solution use a small pressure cooker, and yes add salt at the sart of your cooking because salt gets absorbed into the beans during the cooking process.

I have hard many cons about using baking soda as it draws most of the goodness of the beans out.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

India has many hard water areas and Indians are mostly vegans

The solution use a small pressure cooker, and yes add salt at the sart of your cooking because salt gets absorbed into the beans during the cooking process.

I have hard many cons about using baking soda as it draws most of the goodness of the beans out.

Piazzola,

You are absolutely right, baking soda does destroy some of the bean's nutrients. Also, many people abuse the baking soda trick and the flavour is compromised. I don't use a pressure cooker or add salt at the beginning but I do try to use charcoal filtered water or I add very small amounts of baking soda, never heaping tablespoons and this makes a big difference. I would think cooking the beans to high pressure cooking temperatures also would destroy some of the nutrients.

Edited by melamed (log)

Cheers, Sarah

http://sarahmelamed.com/

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am not an expert but sometimes when my beans won't get soft - I put the lid on the pot and then they get soft. A trick my mother told me. But then again - I believe I have soft water here in Seattle so maybe I just have old beans sometimes.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

×
×
  • Create New...