Originally Posted by quiltingranny
I've read that if you salt the beans before they are finished cooking they will stay hard.
Just what I was going to add. If you salt those beans to early you can cook them for hours and hours and they will never soften up. Try cooking the beans with NO salt until they are soft and then season to your hearts content. Dry beans are a winter staple at our house. Serve them up with a batch of corn bread! Yum!!!