I like to soak brown rice for 24 hours (almost fermenting it) – it cooks up in a much shorter time and it tastes wonderful. Given the freshness of beans from Community Grains, I find that I don’t need to soak the beans for very long at all. Community Grains and Massa Organics sell the freshest dried beans and brown rice that I’ve ever found. (I buy my brown rice from Massa or I don’t buy it at all. It’s that good, y’all.)