Once you have the chilies with which you want to experiment, it is time to test them out. The best way to do this is with a tea. Find a whole, dried pepper in the plastic bag you bought at the store. Get a small saucepan and add just enough water to completely submerge your pepper. Crackle the pepper and all the seeds into the water. Bring it to a boil then reduce the heat, cover and simmer for ten to fifteen minutes.
If you are brewing a five gallon batch of beer odds are you will not need more than a few ounces of pepper. Based on your testing, you will want to adjust how and when you add the chili pepper. If you are looking for straight heat, add the pepper early in the boil, around the same time that you add the bittering hops. If you like the flavor of the pepper, add it during the final five or ten minutes of the boil, just enough time to pasteurize it. If you really like that pepper flavor, make sure that the chilis are transferred into the initial fermentation vessel for some “dry-peppering.”