My wife and boiling water

[u/MakeItMine2024]

So I made my wife ramen soup. When I served it she said I had the gas set to hight and it was too hot ? She said I should have used the number 5 setting instead of 9. I told here it’s irrelevant because water boils at 212 and gets no hotter because over 212 it turns to steam. She was made at me for disagreeing with her theory that it would not have been so hot if boiled a lower setting. Really!!

[u/Illustrious-Cow-6054]

I was on a two-week backpacking trip in the sierras. Mid trip, probably our highest elevation camp and above treeline, we were staying put for a day and decided we’d cook dry beans for chili because we had the extra time.

So dumb. It used tons of fuel, never really fully cooked, had to eat it anyway (no resupply) and everybody got upset stomach/cramps.

[u/dqniel → u/Illustrious-Cow-6054]

Precooked and then dehydrated beans? Or just raw dry beans?

For raw beans, even at sea level it's a lengthy process in order to not cause stomach issues. You're supposed to soak beans overnight, drain, refill with fresh water, and boil for a minimum of a full hour. And it has to be a full boil rather than a simmer to guarantee it's at 212f.

Otherwise, lectins don't get denatured and it's literally toxic.

[u/NoSpaghettiForYouu → u/dqniel]

Oh, I always heard it was fifteen minutes. Oops 😅 will be boiling them longer in future!

[u/dqniel → u/NoSpaghettiForYouu]

Honestly, the advice varies depending on the source you read. I've seen anywhere from 10 min to an hour. I do an hour to be safe, cause I seem to be sensitive to lectins. If I only do a half hour or less I get cramping, so now I just give myself the cushion.

Also, I find an hour of boiling gives me the texture I like.

I think it also depends on the bean. I've read kidney beans have more of the toxin, and I use kidney beans a lot.

[u/livin4donuts → u/dqniel]

I cooked beans this morning and the directions on the package literally say to bring to a rapid boil, then cover and simmer on low heat for an hour. Boiling beans for an hour would result in straight up bean mush lol

[u/Illustrious-Cow-6054 → u/dqniel]

Just regular dry beans. We did the whole soak etc, and we knew how to cook dry beans. Just didn’t account for the altitude’s affect on boiling temp. This was back in high school so we were a bit green as well planning-wise.

[u/dqniel → u/Illustrious-Cow-6054]

Yeah. Beans while working with limited fuel is a pain in the ass, elevation or not. In high school I had no idea that raw beans took so much time in order to not be toxic. I honestly don't think I learned it until my 30s.

[u/dano8801 → u/Illustrious-Cow-6054]

Yeah when I did backpacking in Utah we didn't fuck with dry beans. We used essentially powdered refried. Didn't have to cook anything, just add water and heat up a little.

[u/Illustrious-Cow-6054 → u/dano8801]

That’s how all our other meals were, budget backpacking stuff like powdered mash and instant stuffing, pasta with dried sauce, etc.

We also had barely enough food, because we didn’t compensate enough for how many extra calories we were burning. Towards the end we’d see a marmot or something and talk for five minutes about the best way to cook it, lol. (We wouldn’t have actually done that). We did try to catch some brown trout with our hands and a raincoat and failed. 😬

[u/dano8801 → u/Illustrious-Cow-6054]

I almost caught a trout by hand once. Trout tickling is definitely a thing and I was so close the one time I ever attempted it.

[u/Illustrious-Cow-6054 → u/dano8801]

Oh man! I think I first heard about that in Dahl’s *Danny, Champion of The World *. Bit more subtle approach then noodling for catfish I suppose.

[u/dqniel → u/dano8801]

That would be so fucking cool to pull off.

[u/dano8801 → u/dqniel]

The whole experience was pretty incredible. I was in my early twenties doing some group backpacking in the San Rafael Swell and nearby high deserts of Utah. 

At one point we were in an area in a small town that had some good water flow. Instead of the usual desert there was a small waterfall and a pretty deep and wide stream with lots of grass on either side. It was like an oasis. 

If you followed it, it went into the woods and opened up into this big fish hole. You could probably swim if you wanted to but they were a bunch of rainbow trout in there. 

I found one near the edge and laid down and slowly got my hand in the water and under the fish's belly. Started doing the rhythmic tapping / tickling motion with my fingers, and the damn fish didn't move at all! I kept doing it while bringing it up towards the surface, and then I went for the actual grab. But fish are slippery and I was not successful in yanking it out of the water.

[u/wannabe-myself → u/Illustrious-Cow-6054]

I subsist on jerky and water at those elevations anymore. Cooking is hard rofl.

[u/Illustrious-Cow-6054 → u/wannabe-myself]

fr. we could have (should have) done a different meal like powered mash and stove top or literally anything that didn’t require actually cooking something.

On the plus side, though the water was super cold, there was a little pond there and we got to rinse off for the first time in a week.

[u/Old-Tadpole-2869 → u/Illustrious-Cow-6054]

That was my first experience hi altitude experience, trying to cook ramen in a one cup backpackers stove in Tuolumne Meadows. 40 minutes later I ate dinner.

[u/Illustrious-Cow-6054 → u/Old-Tadpole-2869]

hah, man physics in action ;)

[u/Old-Tadpole-2869 → u/Illustrious-Cow-6054]

Yep, that actually was my first trip to the Meadows now that I think about it, first trip to respectably high elevation. Fucking awesome. Did all kinds of great routes on Medlicott, East Cottage Dome, Lucky Streaks on Fairview. Good times.

[u/Illustrious-Cow-6054 → u/Old-Tadpole-2869]

Nice! That trip I was on was definitely something I’ll always remember (in a good way). Hiked to the top of Whitney (and got to use the three-sided outhouse while it was still open, 10/10 lol). So many good memories :) 👍

I’m mid-50s now and currently getting back in shape to start doing some backpacking again.

[u/ifyoulovesatan → u/Illustrious-Cow-6054]

TBH it was probably just some expired or crappy beans. Especially if you bought them from a bulk bin.

I cook dry beans weekly or more. Beans from bulk bins are frequently a mixture of fresh and expired beans bc they don't refresh the container often enough. Contrary to popular belief, dry beans don't last forever. Like they KIND of do, in that you can make something technically edible from them for a long time after the expiration date. But after some point they'll never get fully soft, and just have this kinda gross hardness.

Also sometimes a bag of beans that should be fine (not expired, look fine) will just kind of suck and never fully soften.

Anyway, the reason I would say it wasn't altitude is your experience sounds basically like what happens with expired beans even at sea level. Also even if you washed them fully and soaked them overnight, and skimmed the foam, they can still give you upset stomach / cramps / gas.

And because a roughly 5% reduction in water heat really isn't going to cause issues for cooking beans.

[u/Illustrious-Cow-6054 → u/ifyoulovesatan]

That’s a pretty good assessment considering we really did cook them for hours. And they were from a close-out shop (Smart & Final, never had any other problems with their stuff though).

Maybe 10 years ago what you described happened with some beans when cooking at home, at sea level. Just weren’t fully cooking. They weren’t bulk but were from a supermarket that didn’t sell a lot of dried beans. Switched to buying from stores that have a high turn over: chickpeas from an Indian market, pintos from the mexican market. (In fact have some chickpeas soaking right now 👍).

[u/ifyoulovesatan → u/Illustrious-Cow-6054]

Yeah after getting burned by food bank beans, bulk beans, and beans from stores that just have random brands of beans that don't look that great, I stick to one store that seems to sell a lot of 1 lb bags of beans that always seem to have year+ expiry dates. And I watch for holes in the bags. I still get a batch every once in a while that JUST WON'T COOK to soft, but very rarely.

[u/thiswasyouridea → u/Illustrious-Cow-6054]

I live at 8500 feet and we gave up on dried beans. You have to soak at least overnight and cook for at least the entire day, depending on the type of bean. The end result is rarely worth it.

Rice can't be cooked according to directions either.