I had the urge, and the video looked so appealing, so I went for it.
Final result - Attempt 2:
The first attempt was rocky, and ultimately failed. First the beans were under-cooked. I didn't exactly know what I was going for, since the beans were chewable after 25 minutes, but still smooth surfaced and floating in a rather watery sauce. I brought it back up to pressure and cooked for another five minutes.... still no dice. Back under pressure, this time for the time it took me to take a shower. Much, much better.
The taste was a bit... potent. I don't know how else to describe it, but it was either too much vinegar or too much salt, or both. This was without adding any bacon either, so that variable was already removed. I used Heinz apple cider vinegar. Maybe it was spoiled, though it didn't taste any different than normal. Or maybe it's just a vastly inferior vinegar to the one used in the recipe. No idea.
After work it was time for attempt two. This time I made the recipe but omitted the salt, waiting until the end to "season to taste." I also had bacon this time.
I increased the cooking time to 45 minutes. It may be that my pressure cooker doesn't reach 15 PSI. I need to run some tests on it. Either way, the new timing was perfect. Bacon went in for another 3-4 minutes. It was honestly delicious at this point. So I scaled out 16 g of salt, and started adding it pinch by pinch....
1 gram. That's all I added and it tasted great. Maybe I had a really salty bacon, I don't know, but after 1 gram I don't think it needed more. I may live in England, but I have an American appreciation for salt, and 16 grams seems like way too much.
And no vinegar... I'm convinced at this point my vinegar is garbage, but no amount enhanced the flavor, it just added an unpleasant sharpness to it.
I then divided the recipe in half and tried adding .5 grams to one half. Part of me thinks I noticed a difference, part of me disagrees. I'm still trying to get a handle on using MSG, but it certainly didn't detract from anything. I also don't know how much I should be using.
