Freezing pre-soaked beans?

[VMBrasseur]

I was making a pot of black beans this weekend. It's just something I do once in a while, then I take the cooked beans, measure them out and freeze them in 1 or 2 cup bags. It makes it really easy to just grab what I need when I need it.

While I was doing this I wondered, "What's to stop a person from just pre-soaking these and then freezing the soaked beans rather than cooking them right then?" That way, assuming I had the time to devote to cooking them fresh at that time, I could do so.

Has anyone ever done this? I currently don't see any reason why I'd need to, but I'm curious as to whether it's advisable. Just in case I ever decide to try it.

--V

[Toby]

V, slightly off topic, but what are the benefits of soaking? I used to soak beans and then I forgot to soak them so I just threw the dry beans in the pot. I found I liked the taste and texture more unsoaked. (I still soak chickpeas.) It takes longer to cook them, so I try to get fresh beans, by buying in places that sell them in bulk with a high turnover so they're fresh. Sometimes I can get freshly dried beans at the farmers' market.

I know cookbooks always tell you to soak them, but people from countries where beans are a staple seem not to soak them when they cook at home.

[VMBrasseur]

I've read of at least two benefits of soaking them. The most popular and obvious one is that it takes less time to actually cook the beans. However, considering that the soaking itself takes time I'm not sure how this is a big advantage (aside from the fact that the soaking is entirely unsupervised and the cooking is not).

The second benefit I've read of is that soaking helps to lessen the gas-causing enzymes in the beans. I'm not sure how much the soaking lessens it, and actually don't particularly care either way. Has anyone else heard this about soaking?

Myself, I tend to soak them because I normally don't have huge stretches of time during which I'm in my apartment for long enough for unsoaked beans to cook. It's hard enough lately to find the time for tending the cooking of soaked beans.

--V

[Toby]

I've heard that about digestion, too, but don't know if it's accurate. Do you have any idea why some recipes say to soak lentils? They cook in 30-40 minutes as it is. I just wash them.

When I used to soak beans, sometimes I then didn't have time to cook them and would just leave them in the refrigerator til the next day. Sometimes they smelled a little fermented. I also found soaked beans tended not to get as silky in the middle; I'm wondering what soaking and then freezing might do to the texture?

[mktye]

I've also read that soaking helps with digestibility, but only if you toss the soaking water and thoroughly rinse the beans prior to cooking. The theory being that the problematic compounds are leached out to some extent.

In regards to the freezing issue -- since the water in the presoaked beans would expand as it freezes, I imagine (I've never tried it) there would be some sort of effect on the texture. But would it be noticable after cooking the beans??? Hmm, I think I hear a soak/freeze/soak/no-freeze bean experiment calling...

(Luckily, my husband is a geeky engineer and is accustomed to my frustrated-scientist taste tests!)

[Suzanne F]

Soaking allows the beans to pick up water; freezing then causes the water to expand and break the cell walls; so I assume that frozen pre-soaked beans would cook faster than non-frozen non-pre-soaked beans started at the same temperature. However, they might come out mushier for the broken-cell-wall reason. BTW: would you thaw the frozen soaked beans, or cook them from the frozen state? If you're only thinking about 1 to 2 cups, the time cooking the frozen ones might be only minimally longer than cooking thawed beans. Oh, and which soaking method do you use: overnight at room temp, or boil 1 -2 minutes, then let sit for 1 hour? An awful lot of variables. Anybody good at modeling?

But why bother, especially with black beans, which cook fairly quickly in any case (under an hour)? They cook up fine without any soaking. (Or do you have to try to get rid of the "root-titi-toot," as Julia Child calls it?) Also why take up the freezer space?

[VMBrasseur]

I use the overnight soak method, since it's more "fire and forget" than the boil/sit method. Low-impact is good.

I'd imagine that the beans would be cooked in their frozen state. I can't see how thawing them would really help/hinder all that much.

I cooked a bunch of black beans this weekend (which is what got me thinking about this matter). It took, oh, an hour and a half or so for about a pound of beans. I see the logic in your theory that the frozen pre-soaked beans might cook slightly faster. And yeah, they'd be mushier I bet. I guess personal preference would kick in here.

Another use for this occurred to me last night: falafel. For falafel, a lot of recipes call for pre-soaked uncooked garbanzo beans. If you have some hanging out in the freezer already it'd help streamline that process a bit. Of course, this is a situation where you'd probably want to thaw the little buggers. I'd hate to think of the damage that can be done by a frozen garbanzo bean accelerated to food processor speeds...

--V

[russ parsons]

i did a story on this many years ago. and oddly enough, it was spurred by the same question: soaking was such a pain, would it be possible to freeze soaked beans so you'd have them as a convenience. but when i started doing the research, what i found was startling.

there is absolutely no advantage--digestive-wise--to soaking beans. in fact, it's counter-intuitive. the sugars that our gut can't handle are the ones the beans need in germination. soaking is the first stage of germination ... how could it reduce them? i talked to scientists who study dried beans (yes, there is such a thing) and the general consensus is that the hot soak method does work (the boiling water kills the bean), but so slightly that you'd have to repeat it 4 to 5 times to actually reduce the sugars.

soaking does shorten the cooking time by about 30 to 50%, depending on the variety and age of the bean. i don't see the point, since cooking beans is so passive (what's another 30 minutes of sitting in the oven by themselves?). And I find the flavor of beans that are cooked without soaking is far superior. the broth is very thick and "beany" (if you don't like the flavor of beans, this could be a drawback). one word of warning is necessary: if you are cooking from a recipe that requires soaking, you will need more liquid in addition to more time. those unsoaked beans really soak up the broth.

i also discovered an interesting cultural paradox: in cuisines that most commonly eat beans (mexico, central america), beans are rarely soaked. in cuisines that most commonly eat rice (india, china, japan), rice is commonly soaked. Yet we soak beans but don't soak rice. what's up with that?

[tony h]

I'd be more worried about bacterial interference - boiling after soaking should kill anything unwanted. Freezing after soaking sounds you'd be encouraging growth of some kind.