I have extra pinto beans purchased for 2011. Delicious and fun! Will trade for annual flower seeds.

Are you referring to the discoloration or is there something else?

Its not the amount of the water, but its temperature. When you heat water, its temperature rises until it hits the boiling point, and then gets no hotter. At the boiling point, water boils off as vapor (steam). Adding more heat only causes more boil-off, the tmeperature remains the same. The pressure above the water affects it boiling point. Increased pressure increases the boiling point. Water boils at 212 F at standard atmospheric pressure at sea level. Go to Denver, elevation ca 5280 ft, and water boils at a lower temperature. Therefore, it will take longer to cook beans in Denver than in Florida. It takes a very long time at places like Vail, Colorado (elevation 10,000+ ft). The small change in pressure of weather systems will affect the boiling point by a few degrees. A low pressure day will need a bit more time to cook the beans. A pressure cooker can speed cooking of beans and other things. One pressure cooker I'm aware of has its relief valve set at about 5 psi above atmospheric. That amount of pressure increase is enough to raise the boiling point enough hasten the cooking of beans. The added pressure may help as well. The cooking time for beans ( and other hard to break down foods) is not a constant. The time given in most recipes is for elevations less than 1000 ft.

I apologize for the lack of detail. I was posting from my smartphone, and the app is a pain in the app. My plan is to do a pseudo-square foot planting. Bush beans have a 4" spacing in SFG, but that is for green beans, not dry. I was thinking of doing 6" spacing in the row, with 3 rows 1 foot apart (a little more than I originally posted), then 2 feet between the groups of rows. I figure this will give enough room for air flow and drying. They are 18-24" bush plants. I did some searching before posting this, and I was surprised to find a discussion about planting pintos using the full-bore SFG method. My experience with SFG is that it's great for small quantities: fresh veggies available for daily meals. That's how Mel B. describes it in his books. For large quantities, for canning, etc., it's a bit of a pain, especially if you're doing it with raised beds (which those in the above referenced discussion were doing).