A little while ago I tried this no-soak recipe for black beans. I cooked them for HOURS but they never seemed to really soften. Where the organic beans I bought from from the hippy food co-op super old? Do they really need to be soaked, despite the serious research by the fellows at Serious Eats? Where did things go wrong?

The problem, it turned out, was the orange added to the beans during the initial cooking phase. This made my water too acidic and the beans stayed hard, no matter how long they cooked. Solution: baking soda. I added a bit (maybe 1/2 tsp) and they softened very quickly. For next time: don’t add orange until beans are already soft.