Bean Pots

[George]

Perfect solution for those with smaller bean pots or larger crockpots. My cooker is too small to put anything under my bean pot and still have the lid fit. Why do these things always happen to me? :haha:

Don't know about water... wouldn't that limit the temperature to boiling temperature?

Spence

 

[Loyalist Dave]

Sounds more like somebody needs to stir the slow cooker bean pot from time to time?

LD

 

[Dr5x]

Allthis about bean pots reminds me of a camping recipe that you can prepare ahead of time in any number for a good breakfast .
Take a zipLoc bag, drop in a couple shelled raw eggs. Shake or stir these two eggs, add salt, pepper, cheese, some chopped onions, and anything else you'd like to see in an omelet. remove as much air from the bag and zip it chut.

At the camp site drop the bag in a pot of boiling water and let boil for 13 minutes
Open the bag, and dump out the contents which will look like a tortilla free burrito and tastes as good as the stuff you included.
You can make a bunch of these at home before setting out on your hunt.
To enhance the flavor place the prepared packets in a cooler with as many cans of cold beer as the cooler will contain. Boiling time at higher altitudes may need to be adjusted upward.

Dutch

 

[George]

Sounds more like somebody needs to stir the slow cooker bean pot from time to time?

Exactly what I decided. Hindsight is always 20-20. :grin:

Spence

 

[pondoro]

I had not thought about the fact that slow cookers are meant be used with water. Dry inside could be bad for the slow cooker. With a lid on the bean pot, water inside the slow cooker, and a lid on the slow cooker you'll get 212 steam in the space between. (100 degrees for you Europeans) The bean pot will start out cold but heat up to 212 eventually. Since I cook my beans for 6-8 hours I expect the beans will sit at 212 more than 4 of those hours.

I might put 3 or 4 pieces of pea gravel under the bean pot so there isn't a hot spot where the pot sits directly on the crockery.

But I am going to try this!

 

[George]

I had not thought about the fact that slow cookers are meant be used with water. Dry inside could be bad for the slow cooker.

I don't think you have to worry about using the slow cooker dry. I've done that several times, baked chocolate cake, blueberry coffeecake, other dry dishes. My cooker is a cheap Proctor Silex one with a removable ceramic pot, the heating elements are in the outer container.

Spence

 

[satx78247]

Pardon me for asking but what is the actual functional difference in using the ceramic liner with heavy lid inside a slow-cooker & using the outer portion of a slow-cooker as a receptacle for a bean-pot with lid.
(Because I routinely cook food for our service club, the local gun club & the DU chapter, I have a half-dozen slow-cookers from 6-10L & use them all often for any number of different braised, stewed & baked dishes.)
SORRY, but I see NO difference in using a liner/lid & a bean-pot inside a slow-cooker.

yours, satx

 

[George]

Pardon me for asking but what is the actual functional difference in using the ceramic liner with heavy lid inside a slow-cooker & using the outer portion of a slow-cooker as a receptacle for a bean-pot with lid.

My experiment was to see if I could put a bean pot inside the ceramic liner of the crockpot, lid on the liner. If I had just put the bean pot in the outer part of the crockpot in place of the liner, there would be no lid. Then it would function as a hot plate, not as an oven.

Maybe your multitude of crock pots have lids which fit on the outer, heating elements with the ceramic liners removed, mine doesn't. My lid only fits the ceramic liner.

Spence

 

[satx78247]

Mine, too.

yours, satx

 

[satx78247]

Btw, I was curious while re-reading this thread, went to look, measured my BIG DO & looked at the bottom.

24 inch diameter by about 9 inches deep, with 3 feet, with a lip about 1.3 inch tall & the only visible making in the cast iron is: USA.
(I have NO idea therefore who cast it or where.)

HEAVY too.

yours, satx

 

[coloradoclyde]

Well!....We know one thing for sure, with U.S.A stamped on the bottom we know it wasn't made in Texas.... :haha:

I have a pan or two that are also just stamped USA. Can't remember off the top of my head....But there are many clues that can tell you who made it...shape, thickness, design, etc...

Hard to guess without seeing it.

I don't get all "hung up" on who made what....when it comes to cast iron cookware, I really only care about 3 things..
Price.
Looks.
Performance.
I must have close to a 100 pieces, both domestic and import. When you find a piece you like, it's worth it's weight in gold.

 

[coloradoclyde]

In all honesty...As good a baked beans are, I much prefer a homemade bean burrito. :grin:

Anyone use their bean pots to cook other stuff?

 

[nhmoose]

Yep! Indian Pudding
https://newengland.com/today/food/indian-pudding-1978/

 

[pondoro]

Btw, I was curious while re-reading this thread, went to look, measured my BIG DO & looked at the bottom.

24 inch diameter by about 9 inches deep, with 3 feet, with a lip about 1.3 inch tall & the only visible making in the cast iron is: USA.
(I have NO idea therefore who cast it or where.)

HEAVY too.

yours, satx

That is a big Dutch Oven!

 

[tenngun]

In all honesty...As good a baked beans are, I much prefer a homemade bean burrito. :grin:

Anyone use their bean pots to cook other stuff?

I think 'bean pot' is like 'corn boiler', or even 'scalping knife'. Cooking in clay pot is handy and maybe it's in my head but tasty, anything moist can be cooked low and slow in a clay pot.
There ain't no feason you would have to go all molasses or maple sugar in your beans. Cumin chili powder and chorizo would work just fine.

 

[satx78247]

It seems BIGGER (and seems to weigh a ton) when I've hauled it all over the place for the last 3+ decades.
In its defense, it DOES cook for a crowd quite well & it's worth (at least to me) considerably more than the 15.oo that I paid for it at an estate sale long ago.

Note: The Salvation Army store at McNeil & Hwy 183 in Austin, TX has a BIG/DEEP outdoor DO that will be sold Saturday by silent/oral auction. = The last one that was auctioned brought 18.oo + tax, if anyone is interested.

yours, satx

 

[satx78247]

Both of my DO have been for cooking stew as much as anything else & I would think that a bean-pot would do a GREAT job of baking/braising many a dish besides baked beans, too.

yours, satx

 

[tenngun]

I've never had hugged rabbits but I understand it has to be cooked in a clay pot. North African food that I do much like is Cooke in the little clay ovens. Of corse Preble might have got some but that's not pc for early American impression :haha:
But it is tasty

 

[George]

I've never had hugged rabbits but I understand it has to be cooked in a clay pot.

My wife and I hugged a rabbit once. Several times. Wouldn't take a very big clay pot for this one. :haha:





Spence

 

[Artificer]

American made cast iron cookware would likely be historically inaccurate until the later 19th century.
Most if not all was imported prior to that..

The Pennsylvania Journal
May 8, 1776

“Manufactured at Batsto Furnace.
In West-New Jersey, and to be Sold either at the works or by the Subscriber, in Philadelphia. A Great variety of iron pots, kettles, Dutch ovens, and oval fish kettles, either with or without covers, skillets of different sizes, being much lighter, neater and superior in quality to any imported from Great Britain-Potash and other large kettles, from 30 to 125 gallons: sugar-mill gudgeons, neatly rounded and polished at the ends; grating bars of different lengths, grist-mill rounds: weights of all sizes from 7 lb. to 56 lb.: Fullers plates: open and closed stoves of different sizes, rag-wheel irons for saw-mills, pestles and mortars: sash-weights, and forge hammers of the best quality...Also, Batsto Pig iron as usual, the quality of which is too well known to need any recommendation.
John Cox”

Spence

Spence,

As I understand it, Saugus Iron Works in Mass. was making cooking pots and other things, beginning in the 17th century.

Hunter Iron Works in Falmouth, VA was also making cooking pots of all sorts and many household items from around 1750-1, but those works were taken over during the AWI to become the Rappahannock Forge to produce Arms for Virginia. However, they continued to make "camp kettles" from their earlier experience with cast iron cooking pots.

Gus