Geraldine Duncan gives great advice on beans. The following is her article:

To soak or not to soak, that is the question. Pre soaking your beans is an exercise in futility. I have never soaked a bean in my life nor my mother before me. I have absolutely no idea where the myth about soaking beans over night before cooking them came from. It is absolutely unnecessary and actually, not wise. There is a myth that soaking the beans removes the gasses. Un-true! When you soak your beans over night, the natural sugars begin to ferment, thereby producing more gas. In general people who have a very high fiber content in their diets are not bothered with bean gas. Beans are very high in fiber and when they enter the digestive tract of people who eat very little fiber, they naturally start things moving and the result is – GAS!

Now, as to it taking to long to cook your beans if you don’t soak them; well, shuckey darn, I put my beans in a pot, cover then with water, bring them to a boil in an uncovered pan, then reduce the heat to maintain a simmer, cover with a tight fitting lid and in approximately an hour and a half to two hours I have fully cooked beans! No soaking, no draining, no fussing! Now, do not put any salt in the pot with the beans because it tends to make them tough. Salt them after the fact. You can however add garlic, onion, bay and other herbs and seasonings to the pot.

How much water to how many beans? I put however many beans I want into a pot that will give them plenty of room and add enough cold water so that it is standing about 4 inches above the surface of the beans.

How many dry beans make how many cooked beans? You get almost double the volume of cooked beans as the amount of dry beans you started with.

I kid you not. You don’t have to soak your beans.

 

Her method is pretty much the same as the quick-soak method, once brought to a boil and taken off the heat they are of course still very hot and cooking. I think this time off the heat just helps to tenderize them. If you add up the time she says to cook the beans and the quick soak method, it is about the same.