slow cooker, beans-what did I do wrong?

hotcookie101

Hi,
I recently bought a slow cooker (which I love) and have been making lots of soups etc
However yesterday had a a bit of a disaster-had a packet of mixed dried beans (black eye butter kidney etc etc) which I soaked from lunctime weds until yesterday AM, when I drained them, put new water in pan, brought to boil and boiled for 10 mins (as kidney beans there) They might have boiled for slightly longer than 10mins (at the most 15)
Then put them in SC with veg tomatoes and boiling water and cooked on low for 5 hours-came back at lunch and they were tough and grainy, so I increased the heat to high and they had another 3-4 hours-still gross
The beans are in date, so I dont really know why they are so horrible! (think I will stick to tins from now on-less money saving but better not to have to pick hundreds of minging beans from a soup!)
Any ideas what I did wrong?

oldMcDonald

I often use pulses in the slow cooker. I think that the way you did it would take the beans forever to cook as they need a lot of time in the saucepan to cook normally. To get round this I sometimes cook them fully in a saucepan and then add them to whatever is in the slow cooker, however, there is an easier way

When you have a little spare time, soak and cook a huge load of pulses, cool them and then bung them in a bag in the freezer. You can just pull out what you need of the ready cooked beans and chuck them in the slow cooker. It is still chaeper than buying them tinned, and you always have some handy if you forget to soak, fancy making a chick pea curry etc. At the moment I have butter beans, kidney beand, chick peas and mixed beans in the freezer. I also make my own baked beans in tomato sauce in the slow cooker and then freeze them for when I want to use them, much, much nicer than shop bought

hotcookie101

thank you-will cook fully next time before i add them to things

Olliebeak

I've done them in the Pressure Cooker before now - THEN put them in the Slow Cooker.

Farway

Did you add salt? Salt added at start can make beans tough so I have read

ariba10

If the beans are old they will be tough.