ALL ABOUT PRESSURE COOKERS AND COOKING BEANS
The size of your pressure cooker determines how much beans you can cook in that particular cooker.
I have two different size cookers. I have a giant "MIRRO" one (16 quarts) for pressure canning which can hold at least 4 lbs of dry beans to cook... probably more I have not reached it's capacity yet LOL If I use it for my beans it is for when we go camping and I am feeding 20 people. I make a huge batch and then save half for us to eat later. My only complaint about it is that it is aluminum... If I could do a do over i would geta stainless steel model.
I also have a small Manttra(6 quart) one which you can cook a 1# bag of beans in quite nicely. (1# = 2 cups of dry beans)
(For your gasket replacement check at your local ACE hardware in the household section, ours has replacement gaskets there. But I do live in a small town and we have limited options.. so our hardware store carries a lot of cool things)
you should also know that pressure canners come in 4 different guage styles. There is the dial guage style, the weighted guage style, the rocker style and the newest kind like my manttra which has the guage and pressure release built into the handle.
http://www.pressurecooker-canner.com/prestocanner.htmland for Mirro
http://www.pressurecooker-canner.com/mirroparts.htmlIF you are looking to buy a new one consider what you are using it for in order to determin which style will work best for you.
Now that I have the little one with the pressure guage built into the handle I would not reccomend that style. I would just get it with the littel rocker nob on top that you get rocking when the pressure builds up and then lower your heat till it is just rocking two or three times a minute. For my canning model I have the weighted guage it has 5, 10 or 15 lbs pressuer depending which side of the weighted disk is up. It cooks things faster because I can set it on the 15 pound side if I wish. I didn't get the larger one with the pressure guage it was quite expensive. the weighted rocker works just fine for my purposes.
Now about beans....
times to cook depend on the type of beans you are cooking. I will assume you have the pressure in handle type but if you have the rocker type you may want to shorten your times.
NOTE:My times are for sea level if anyone reads this and is living in the moiuntains you need to ad probably 10 minutes to your cooking times or even 15 if you are higer up.Okay here are the beans in your pressure cooker times and amounts...
I use 6 cups of water to 2 cups of beans because I like a softer bean with juice to make a stew type of thing and am adding other vegetables after it is cooked.
But these are the amounts they list with the instruction manuel for my MAnttra 6 quart cooker. And times are for when full pressure has been reached (pressure handles only go to 5 lbs pressure)
Al amounts are for 2 cups of Soaked dry beans / unsoaked
Black eyed beans 3 C water 6 minutes / 4 C water 15 Min
Garbanzo Beans 3 C Water 18 Minutes / 5 C water 48 Min
Great Northern 4 C Water 5 Minutes / 5 C water 35 Min
Kidney Beans 4 C Water 11 Minutes / 5 C water 40 Min
Pinto Beans 4 C Water 6 Minutes / 4 C water 30 Min
Red Beans 4 C Water 6 Minutes / 4 C water 30 Min
Small navy beans 4 C water 5 Minutes / 4 C water 30 Min
Soy beans 5 C Water 20 Minutes / 5 C water 45 Min
Lentils Unsoaked 4.5 cups water 6 minutes cooking time.
Here are my two recipes from marys minis for amounts of seasoning and such.
http://drmcdougall.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=22576&start=15http://drmcdougall.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=22576&start=30IF you add your seasoning to the pressure cooker remember to cut amounts in half.. the pressure really infuses the beans and intesifies it so you need a lot less seasoning.
hope that helps.