I recently bought a 9.5 Quart Tramontina Pressure Cooker for the purpose of cooking dried beans and legumes since I've moved to an altitude that makes simple stove top cooking impractical.
I've only used the cooker twice, and each time, it pressure locks but steam/bubbles continue to come out of the handle (on and off), the manual pressure release valve (frequently) and something called the "safety fuse plate" (almost continuously). Very little steam comes out of the pressure limiting valve from what I can tell.
I am not familiar with pressure cooking, but have done quite a bit of reading and cannot figure out if this is normal or unsafe or really anything. I know I'm not overfilling it and I doubt the pressure is too high. The food does not come out cooked/finished, although that could be due to incorrectly adjusting the times for the altitude.
So my questions are:
1) Is this normal?
2) Does this sound unsafe?
Happy to provide any more information as requested.
EDIT: After replacing the safety fuse plate, the bubbling continued. I reached out to customer service and they think its probably an issue with the valve itself. If I get a replacement, I'll try the cooker again and update with the results.
Best Answer
Beans and legumes produce a lot of scum/foam (it's a mostly denatured protein mat) while cooking. For a pressure cooker, this can clog your vents (a bad thing). So you want to ensure that not too much is produced. Your user manual should have a section describing the cooking of beans and/or legumes with appropriate instructions.
An example is on page 23 of this manual. To summarize: