Modifying Pressure Cooker Timing for Beans

Question

According to the Ninja Foodi FD402 pressure cooker guide, one can make 2 pounds of dry beans using the following instructions:

But, 2 pounds of beans is quite a lot. I am wondering, could I half or quarter the the amount of beans, and if so would I also half or quarter the amount of water and cooking time?

Essentially, I'm not sure the water/time is in a normal ratio of quantity of beans, so I want to confirm this. If its not, how much water and time would you reduce each by if I half or quarter the amount of dry beans? (It is slightly confusing that the book explains the pre-soaked beans assuming a single pound as well but oh well -- it would have been a bit interesting if they kept both at the same quantity.)

Answer 1

The beans/water ratio is not particularly important as long as there's enough water. You want the beans covered throughout cooking, keeping in mind that they'll expand and the water level will drop. If they cook "dry" on top, those beans will have a different [and worse] texture than the beans on the bottom. So halving the water is probably enough, but you may want to reduce it to 2/3 or so to make sure they don't end up cooking dry on top.

Pressure cooking time is measured once the beans are fully up to temperature/pressure, so to a first approximation, there should be no difference in cooking time based on the amount of beans.

If you want to be precise, because a smaller amount of beans would spend less time coming up to pressure (during which it would be cooking, albeit more slowly), the at-pressure cooking time should be slightly extended. I wouldn't bother with that, though. It's not going to be a significant factor in the variability in "optimum" cooking time.

Bottom line: Use "enough" water; 2/3 for half the beans should be fine. Try it with the same cooking time as in the table. Later, adjust to personal preference if necessary.