Question: what do you make with your chickpeas? I’m still using canned or cooked cartons, but will buy dry on my next order.
Great tip! Yes, I forgot to add I always try to use bottled water. Jealous of your well water @Emglow101. I grew up with well water and when my tap water drinking L.A. cousins would visit they complained that it tasted like a tin can. 
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I started using bottled water after talking to a old time mexican fellow . I tasted his out of the world beans at a party .Your pinto beans are fantastic I said . I got him a shot of tequila. Of course I’m going to dig for the secret to his beans . That’s what he divulged. It made quite a difference.
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Had anybody used their beans in chili?
I’m gonna to make a big pot of beans this week but thinking of using some for chili.
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Nice haul @js76wisco! Me, I like sturdier kidney beans more than pintos in chili. The Ayocote Morado look like they’d do the trick! 
Edit: the Domingo Rojo would work too. 
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I read this somewhere else but do you know why we are adding the fats, meat and salt midway through cooking process? I believe people said adding salt at the beginning makes the beans take long to cook. Just curious about the process.
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I’m not @TheCookie but if I’m using regular supermarket beans i will wait until the end to salt. With RG or other more recently dried beans i don’t think it matters so much.
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Good questions @js76wisco.
Some think early salt also makes skins tough. Not adding the meats until beans are softer is about the salt (bacon, ham, ham hock, smoked turkey leg, etc.). But some have noted the earlier you put in the salty, fatty goodness the better the flavors, so it’s a dilemma. That’s why I cheat sometimes and cook them in 1/2 water 1/2 low sodium chix broth, and with the sturdy Moros I cooked them in water & leftover bean broth which was full of salt and they were perfect. Olive oil is fine, but to me, adding the butter later is about overcooking and having more buttery flavor when added later. I usually only add butter to vegetarian beans or beans that have acids (vinegar, tomato). I agree with @aaqjr that RG are fresher and cook faster, but it’s important to note RG suggests adding salts and acids later. I’m going to experiment with adding everything sooner on my next batch.
NOW! If you’re making CHILI and adding only uncured meat like ground beef it doesn’t matter. But! If you add ground meat too soon it breaks into tiny, mealy bits. I use a Chili Champ’s trick of molding meatballs before dropping in so the meat breaks up slower. But I did notice she also puts the meat in after everything has cooked for a bit. Another note is she does a few “dumps” of her chili powders along the way to keep the flavors fresh and not cook-off the chili powder.
Fun! Fun! Chili Fun!
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I just realized I didn’t really answer your question but maybe you got your answer from my dissertation. 
Yes it’s about salt making them take longer to cook. But with fresher beans like RG it’s up for debate.
Hahahhaah you ain’t playing! You really do have beans for the apocalypse 
What is the plan for those?
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This is different than adding salt in cooking and I’m sure it varies by bean and age of beans but as I mentioned earlier salt soaking has led to a more consistently cooked bean ever since I first started doing it. That is, the resulting beans are consistently cooked through and there are few to none burst beans.
It’s been a while since I read their explanation on it (and apparently it’s now okay to do a 1.5Tbl kosher salt/2qrt water/1lb beans ratio) but it has something to do with pre-gelatinizing the available starch and weakening the pectin in bean skins.
I remember the bean skin part but wasn’t aware of the retrograding of the starch- that’s such an uncelebrated aspect of food science that I feel keeps getting rediscovered over and over again.
It also occurs to me that this probably isn’t really necessary for a fresher bean like Rancho Gordo so, um… Sorry for the digression.
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Thanks all. I think I’ll probably just go with @Emglow101 suggestion. A little of this a little of that. How bad could it turn out?
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Fake news.
https://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/09/harold-mcgee-on-salt/
https://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/15/when-to-salt-your-beans/
https://www.thekitchn.com/think-salt-is-the-enemy-of-perfect-beans-think-again-196470
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This! You have enough tips, information, disinformation, traditions, science, myths and the usual snark followed by a bunch of links from Robert. You’re good.
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Delete
@TheCookie I basically followed your recipe. 6 hours later. Love the beans. Going to pair well with the carnitas we are making tomorrow.
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Yay! The beans are intact and the “gravy” looks great. Six hours… holy moly. What beans?
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Thanks. These were pinto beans. The gravy was indeed delicious. I cooked them on a very low simmer and kept on adding hot water and salt tasting every step of the way. Sooooo much better than canned beans.
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