I feel the cooked beans will absorb the flavoring better than if those things were added while the beans were being cooked. That method gave great flavor for me.

thank you, M 

Did you see this part of the instructions: “At this point, beans will definitely be more runny than you want, but I like the idea of keeping the flavor that’s in the cooking water and excess liquid will cook off when the beans are fried.”

The beans will be liquidy until they are “fried” but that bean cooking liquid adds flavor to the finished beans and keeps them from burning in the Instant Pot.

I haven’t ever tried cutting down a recipe for a 6 quart Instant Pot into one suitable for a 3 quart. I would guess that some recipes will still work, as long as the amount doesn’t go above the fill line in the pot. But other than that I’d have to suggest googling it to see what you can find.

So happy to hear that!

Personally I think the flavor of cooking the beans from scratch is well worth the time for this recipe; they are so much better than canned refried beans. And I haven’t made it with canned beans so I’m not sure how much advice I can give you. I know that one can of beans is 1 1/2 cups of cooked beans, but I don’t know how many cups of cooked beans you’d get from 2 cups of dried beans, maybe you can google to find that. I think that the canned beans probably need a little cooking under pressure to give the soft texture of refried beans, then I would add the other ingredients and finish it.