What to do about tasty, but unappealingly gray "black bean soup"?

Consulted a few friends on this topic. Here's the conversation (copied from Facebook):

Question: What makes black beans loose their color? And is there any way to keep that color in tact? A friend of mine made black bean soup from dried beans soaked in baking soda. Then end result is an unappetizing grey color. Any ideas?


Crescent Dragonwagon: Much of the colors that are natural in beans are water soluble. When you soak and drain them, you lose some color (indeed, you can see some of the purple-black go down the sink). But while that weakens the color, you don't LOSE it entirely. Adding baking soda? Bad idea. Makes beans cook a little faster and to some accounts makes them tendered, but destroys b-vitamins and, because it alters PH, alters color. Black bean soup should be black!


Jill Nussinow: I agree with Crescent Dragonwagon. I cooked some black beans yesterday and they are still mighty black afterwards. Sometimes I think that it depends upon the beans. My beans never have baking soda added.
I do think, though, that sometimes adding acidic ingredients does change the color of beans and other food.


Crescent Dragonwagon: ‎Jill Nussinow --- and everyone --- yeah! It's all about the PH! Alter by making an ingredient acid or alkaline --- things change.


Steve Sando (from Rancho Gordo beans): I find it depends on the variety as well. Our Midnights stay black, our DeArbol from Oaxaca turn a very dark brown. Michigan Black stay the blackest but they taste like nothing. I'd not change the soaking water or not soak them at all.

And baking soda! Crescent is right. Nasty stuff and really not needed. We have a natural salt from 3,000 year old salt mines from Mexico that actually softens beans like baking soda without the losses. But better to buy fresher beans than baking soda.


Michael Natkin: The pigment in black beans is a type of anythocyanin - the same family of chemicals that are responsible for many of the red, purple and blue colors in foods. And yes, they are notoriously pH sensitive. Make some red cabbage extract and try hitting it with vinegar or baking soda if you want to see how dramatic the change can be.

 
Here's what I think: Chlorine. Florida has a boucou amount in its water to purify.

In fact, you ALWAYS keep a jug of Chlorox around during hurricane season to purify the water if services are shut off.

So last night I started a test: soaking black beans in distilled water versus my filtered tap water. Two bowls soaked last night and this morning one is being cooked on low in the crockpot with the same water it was soaked in.

Beans are generic "black".

When that batch is done, the "Florida Water" batch will be cooked the same way to minimize variables.

Traca, all excellent info from your chat. You know some serious cooks, chicka! Thank you for sharing. Apparently this is a common annoyance and I plan to get to the bottom of it. Well...maybe the basement.

 
Okay. This time I'm using the soaking water. For some reason, I thought "bean gases" might

have saturated that water.

See. What do I know.

 
P.S. I no longer have Harold McGee's book. I wonder what he says about beans. Anyone have the book?

 
You might be on to something with the water. I did some bread baking when I

lived in Ft. Lauderdale. I wasn't happy with the results until I read something that made me wonder about the water. I started using bottled spring water and had much better bread. I have no idea why that would be. It might have been something other than chlorine in the water.

 
There are some gasses that saturate the water which is why people drain it,

but unless someone is particularly sensitive to eating beans it usually isn't necessary. At least that is my opinion. Maybe my guests and their spouses experience wakeful nights and they're too embarrassed to tell me.

 
Water test was inconclusive. Both the filtered and distilled ended up the same color. But BOTH

stayed darker than my first batch when I used the same cooking water that was used for soaking (no baking soda was used).

I think the next thing might be to try a darker variety, like mentioned in Traca's post.

 
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