A Very Bad Attempt at Using the Instant Pot as a Slow Cooker – Undercooked Black Bean Chili

The title of this post says it all.  Almost. 

Yes, I tried to use my Instant Pot as a slow cooker for the first time. 

Yes, it was an uncooked disaster. 

But did I utilize a poor approach to adapt the Instant Pot to slow cooking?  Yes.  

I think I committed three fatal errors on this first attempt.

First, I used a random glass lid which "seemed" to fit over the inner Instant Pot stainless steel pot, but it was not a perfect fit. 

Second, I opened the pot to stir the mixture once or twice because it seemed to my naked eye that water had evaporated too much from the pot.  It hadn't.  I subsequently read that removing the lid during a slow cook can disrupt the cooking process by letting too much heat escape from the pot.  Oops.

Third, I used Rancho Gordo's Chiapas Black Beans which I have found require a VERY long cook time compared to other black beans.  

Unfortunately, even though I halved the recipe, the beans just weren't that cooked after 8 hours.  So then I did two rounds of pressure cooking, at 5 minutes a piece, but the beans were still not that cooked!

So maybe I will attempt a slow cook again, but only with a proper fitted lid and perhaps with non-dried beans (either canned or at least soaked overnight). 

And/or a 10+ hour cook time.  Just to be safe.