I have noticed that there are 2 different kind of pinto beans now. There are the light colored ones and the dark ones. The dark ones do not cook well at all. I bought a bag of them and cooked them on the stove all day just to have hard beans by dinner time. So it could just be the beans themselves.

I never have problems with dry beans, but one time I tried to make baked beans using dry beans. they never got soft enough. I read somewhere after that that there are certain things (don't remember what they are) that you have to wait and add later. These things keep the beans from softening up. Seems that it was tomatoes or tomato products. Anyway, whatever it was was in my recipe and I attributed it to that. Haven't tried to make baked beans with dried beans since that.

If you have hard water (like I do) you have to use purchased water. You can try to cook beans, split peas, lentils, 'til the cows come home in my water and they'll be as hard as rock.

You may have something there, these beans were a lot darker than normal pintos. I ate a spoonful last night to see if they could be saved, my DH came in ready for them as the whole house smelled so good, I said he could have some but they're crunchy! Lol
I strained the beans out of the pot last night and gave them to our outside dogs, they had no problem at all. I soaked white & navy beans last night and put them in this morning, so we'll see how it goes.
Thanks to all for the helpful suggestions! :)

I've had that happen when I used a large bag of red beans. I think that they do get old. Now I only get the 1 lb packages of my favorite brand and they are fine!

I've cooked dry beans, mostly pintos, all my life. A couple of times thru the years I've had a bag that would just not get soft, I think it's a bad bag of beans.

I cooked some dry butter beans last week. Did not soak them overnite, so I brought them to a boil, turned them off and let set for an hour. Resumed cooking, made sure they had plenty of water but they still turned out crunchy. They tasted great, but next time I will soak them overnite, then we shall see if its the beans or just me! lol

this happened to me once, I think it was the beans or possbily cooked them too long? Never did know, threw them out

If you have soaked the beans then put them in the pot with sugar they will never soften. You must cook the bean after soaking then add them to the pot with brown sugar or molasses, and the rest of the ingredients. The sugar prevents them from softening. been there done that! ;)

I've read that if you salt the beans before they are finished cooking they will stay hard.