I've heard the same thing. Unless water is scarce it's best to discard the soak/cooking water from beans.

Never heard it called the "blast effect."

Beans aren't a problem with me, mostly. But broccoli -- whew!

Given enough methane production, I'd want to capture it to run the generator.

:-)

Just a thought- since everyone interested in this topic must have some food stashed for the long term.
At this time of year, many food pantry's are in the collection mode. If you have not "rotated out" in your natural "first in first out" method I find that scouring the pantry for shelf dates sell by in the next 6 months. Kicking into the local food drive feels good and is a good reason to buy new items for long term storage and replacing the stuff due to expire in 2008.
It is a shame to find stuff a year or more past the sell by date that food banks could use.

If you're cooking with the thermos method, pour hot water into the thermos to heat it up, then drain it just before you put the hot beans into it. Pouring hot beans into a cold thermos is counter-productive.

Sue