[Closed] Heating beans.....

I'd wager a high heat and a shallow/wide pan would be less fuel than low heat and a deep/narrow one.

Are we doing this on a conveyor belt, or the more conventional Lazy Susan?

My mom still heats them in a pan and they taste better than being nuked.

Fact.

homemade beans, slow cooked with a ham hock, then served with a poached egg, and thick granary toast,

No gas required for any of the above

homemade beans, slow cooked with a ham hock, then served with a poached egg, and thick granary toast,

There's always one smart arse.

massive losses of heat when heating on a gas hob so as above high heat and wide pan probably best. Also put the lid on.

But for best beans cook in a smaller pan with the lid on and a low heat and stir well.

what altitude are we cooking at ?

Real men eat them cold.

That really answers the Ops question Ron, well done 🙂

I suspect much more heat is wasted with gas if you use a high flame. With leccy it would almost certainly make little difference but I may need to write some formula out to decide for sure.

In theory the beans would need the same calorific input to heat to a given temperature, but then they may lose more heat to the atmosphere if heated slowly. I think fast would be most efficient

That really answers the Ops question Ron, well done 🙂

I suspect much more heat is wasted with gas if you use a high flame. With leccy it would almost certainly make little difference but I may need to write some formula out to decide for sure.

well it is STW, so somebody had to do it.....

True 🙂

I would say that the [i]shape[/i] of the saucepan that the beans were in would be more important. The lower the surface area to volume ratio is, the more the beans will retain the heat being added and therefore they will heat up quicker. A saucepan where the height of the beans equals the diameter would be ideal.

I think it would be more effecient to cook the beans on a gas hob or camping stove using a low flame. All other things being equal, no loss from wind ect, the flame would heat the centre of the pan and any heat that would be lost away from the flame on high heat spilling away from the pot would instead heat the rest of the underside of the pot.

But I could be wrong. Don't forget to keep stirring the beans.

A high heat flame that was the correct shape (no wider than the pan), and in a pan of the correct dimensions (height to width ratio) would maybe be most efficient.

Have the bans come out of a tin in the cupboard or a tupperware tub in the fridge?

Ideally you would open the tin, put it in the pan and then leave the pan in a hot car / greenhouse / airing cupboard for a few hours for maximum efficiency (assuming that you use these for other purposes other than just pre-heating your beans).

Interesting stuff..... I was using the pan as a constant and just wondering about heating efficiency 😀
I'd forgotten completely about heat loss through an uncovered pan though - good point.
Nuked beans are just wrong!
Personally I prefer the long, slow cook at I usually try and achieve that slightly mushy texture which my wife hates 🙂

Have you not got two pans and two tins of beans? Can you experiment? Preferably with time lapse video.

Personally I prefer the long, slow cook at I usually try and achieve that slightly mushy texture

Cheers,
Jamie

Homemade beans or tinned beans... which generates more gas?

flip - Member

My [b]mom[/b] still heats them in a pan and they taste better than being nuked.

Fact.

Cold out of the tin is the best way anyway, with a few splashes of Worcester sauce.

And cheese melted on top.

Ah but if you heat them quick, with a lid on they will need stirred.
To stir them you will need to remove the lid, so its less effective
Stirring however will increase the heat transfer rate as the beans are moving and will also even out the hot spots next to the pan bottom

To stir them you will need to remove the lid, so its less effective

But theres also the heat gained by friction during the stiring - not much,granted, but its there and it goes someway to counter the heat lost by taking the lid off. Add that to your formula Molgrips. We need a figure to represents a quite vigorous stir, every so often - say about as vigorous as you'd stir if theres something uptempo on the radio and at intervals that allow you to also be putting some toast on and maybe making a nice cup of tea.

If you are American, your beans are unpleasant.

I heat mine in the kettle.

Beans have to be cooked in a pan, not nuked, and must have a huge dollop of butter dropped in them, and a huge squirt of Heinz tommy K

The correct and least efficient way to reheat them. Always taste better reheated.

If the heat is too low, the beans are going to start cooling as you cook them. If too high, you will waste energy making one spot VERY hot before the heat has a chance to dissipate throughout the bean-mass. There must be a Goldilocks sweet spot somewhere inbetween the two...

so how do refried beans work then?

Is it really a case of "We fried them once and then, just for luck, fried them again' or is there more to it than that?

My dad's method is to take the lid off the tin and stand it in the oven next to the Fray Bentos pie he's having with the beans. Not a good combination for the Clean Air Act!

so how do refried beans work then?

Is it really a case of "We fried them once and then, just for luck, fried them again' or is there more to it than that?

'refried beans' is a miss-translation [i]frijoles refritos[/i] means 'well cooked beans' not 'twice cooked beans' and they might be baked or fried

Induction hob FTW!

(But I buy the single use microwave pots of beans anyhow)