After 8 hours on low cooken in a slow cooker, the potatoes and beans are not cooked in the stew, the meat really, what did I do wrong?. When potatoes slowly warm to a temperature of 75 degrees, they get a very solid structure. This is a handy trick when you want to cook waxy potatoes: Set in the cold (well) water over low heat and warm up. To cook them, they just get well above that temperature coming out. If you want to make a puree of potatoes, you want no fixed structure, and you have to limit of 75 degrees as quickly as possible pass: First boil the water, and then the potatoes into chunks in it. When beans are mainly the tough skin. It must also (if only very briefly) exposed to high temperatures, in order to soften the cell structure. The principle of slowcooken is commonly used to prevent this destructive process, but with beans and potatoes is a high temperature is necessary, alsvorens they are fit for human consumption. I have a Breville, it has a low, medium and high setting. The low in my case the warming mode. so if a recipe says that the 8 hours on low then I should at my slow cooker the medium Mode. .