662375 Mon Oct 26 08:23:26 -0700 2009 5 31 Home Cooking 0 5131432 A friend gave me an 8qt pressure cooker from the 1960's. I decided to use it despite dire online cautions. I have no manual for it and some of the guidelines are hard to interpret. I failed to keep good notes at first but am now doing so. FWIW: a pound of supermarket dry kidney beans, soaked overnight in salted water, rinsed, covered to a depth of 1" by fresh water and a glug of oil. 15 min at pressure, 30 min natural release yielded overcooked beans. A pound of supermarket dry great northern beans, same treatment, 5 min at pressure, 15 min natural release also produced overcooked beans. The brining of the dried beans, as recommended by the Cooks Illustrated people, definitely does a good job at flavoring the beans. This seems to make them cook faster, in contrast to salting the cooking water, which makes for tougher skins and harder beans. Mon Oct 26 08:23:26 -0700 2009 159317 greygarious 1 5131626 The recommendations from Lorna Sass (which should be good for any standart 15 psi cooker) are: - don't fill more that halfway - quick-release (ie. place cooker under cold running water (but keep water away from any vents)). - drain immediately red kidney, soaked - 10m under pressure for firm great northern, soaked - 8m pressure MissVickie should also have times online. I suspect that the main safety feature that your 60s model lacks is a lid interlock. It probably has a overpressure vent (most likely a rubber plug in the lid). As long as the rubber parts are in good condition (replaced with in the past couple of years), and you don't try to open the lid with the weight still in place, you should be safe. Mon Oct 26 09:23:10 -0700 2009 5131432 12139 paulj 1 5132696 See if your library or used book store has a copy of Lorna Sass. There's a handy chart on the inside back cover for different kinds of beans and somewhere around page 80 a chart for veggies. (Besides all the good recipes). Mon Oct 26 15:02:40 -0700 2009 5131432 169792 lgss 2 5132734 2nd that. This is for her Great Vegetarian Cooking Under Pressure, which has more on beans than her non-veg one. There are timings for quick and for natural pressure release. Mon Oct 26 15:15:51 -0700 2009 5132696 10400 Aromatherapy 2 5132740 I am not going to get into the PC all that much - I am retired now so saving time is not a big issue. The one given to me is aluminum so I wouldn't use it for tomatoey foods, which I cook quite often. I've perfected brown rice - and am getting there on the beans. I posted my failures just as info to other PC neophytes. But I took your advice and searched Sass on Amazon - turns out there is a 20th anniversary paperback re-issue of Cooking Under Pressure coming out on November 3. A bunch of other PC books she's written are also available new and used. I'll probably make crib notes at Borders. Mon Oct 26 15:19:29 -0700 2009 5132696 159317 greygarious 1 5132871 I always use the natural release method, as surely some of the efficiency gains of the pressure cooker are lost in the quick-release method. I would leave the kidney beans at pressure for five minutes, then natural release, and see how that goes. The great northern beans should cook a little faster than the kidney beans. I have sometimes opened the pot to find slightly undercooked beans, and then I literally just close the pressure cooker, bring it back up to pressure for a minute or two, natural release, and they're done. Mon Oct 26 16:08:53 -0700 2009 5131432 19782 Full tummy