On addition to a few comments on the subject here on the blog, a lot of Rancho Gordo fan page members on Facebook made some comments on cooking beans at high altitude:
- In Denver, we just cooked em longer. Same for Montana and the mountains of Wyoming. It takes water longer to come to a boil is all.
- ^^^actually, the water boils faster at higher elevation because it's boiling at a lower temperature. You wind up needing longer to cook because you're cooking at a lower temp.
- Being from Albuquerque, we just got used to having to cook them for a longer period. I'm glad to be at sea level now for that reason. I still own and use my pressure cooker though.
- never mind the altitude . . . the hardness of the water can be crippling! If I don't add some baking soda to the cooking water, it doesn't matter how long I soak OR cook . . . they're gonna be toothsome. RG or non-RG. Word.
- Just cooked a pot of cranberries in Klamath Falls, OR. It took a little longer, but they were fabulous - even without presoaking.
- Spring water, no salt till done, add 1/2 as much time and patience. :-)
- Yup, a pressure cooker, and she still needs to increase standard pressure cooking time by 10% for each 1,000 feet beyond the first 2,000 above sea level. Recently I was in Sedona and my risotto took 6 minutes instead of 4!
- Having just come down from living over a month at 8500 ft/base, it is a BITCH to cook beans!! They cooked for 2 days and were still not done. Problem is that the water can't get hot enough, for us water boils at around 180F/82C. Pressure cooker might work but it would scare the bejeezuz out of me to use it at altitude (the coffee pot routinely explodes every morning). I'm giving up....will use canned beans and pretend I cooked them. Lousy trade off,but the skiing is good.
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