Lisa_regina,

To quote a well known Canadian chefÂ

A recipe is merely words on paper; a guideline, a starting point from which to improvise. It cannot pretend to replace the practiced hand and telling glance of a watchful cook. For that reason feel free to stir your own ideas into this dish. When you cook it once, it becomes yours, so personalize it a bit. Add more of an ingredient you like or less of something you don't like. Try substituting one ingredient for another. Remember words have no flavour, you have to add your own!

I donÂt know what the "standard" flavour chili powder ingredient combo is exactly but I usually use the following as a base and improvise each time I make it by adding a little of this and some of that. I havenÂt come across the ultimate powder blend yet but IÂm having fun looking for it ;-)

Michael SmithÂs Homemade Chili Powder

Yield: 1 cup

Ingredients:
 1 x dried ancho chili
 1/4 cup dried oregano
 1/4 cup cumin seed
 1/4 cup coriander seed
 1/4 cup paprika

Directions:
1. Grind ingredients in a spice or coffee grinder and store in a mason jar.

FWIW - Bill

You're going to be looking for mostly thin-walled varieties.

Ancho/Poblano dried chilis have an "earthy/nutty" flavor tone to their heat.

Chimayo (a type of anaheim pepper) is known for keeping a brilliant red color when dried as well as being a really tasty base for any chili homemade powder. They are very seedy, though.

Those 2 types are mild/medium (mostly mild) heat. There are more.

You can mix in some sweet (no/little heat) thin-walled types that have distinct flavors like Aji Duce or Jimmy Nardello's.

I believe bill is correct, the traditional pepper used for Chili Powder is Ancho(Pablano).

This is actually the same reason I got into pepper and tomato growing, for chili and salsa.

question:
do you remove the seeds before grinding, or does it matter?

if you do remove the seeds before grinding, is this for all peppers or are there some peppers that you dont (want to/have to) do this for?

I am fairly new to chile growing and I have made chili powder as a method of preserving my crop. I would add oregano, cumin etc at the stage of meal preparation. I like jalapeno and serrano powders and particularly like rocoto on my chili lime roast peanuts. I am looking forward to trying chimayo and aleppo this season. Have you tried the chile flakes and chili powder from Penzey's? This uses aleppo peppers and is the best that I have tried.
Brien

Here's Alton Brown's recipe

Anyone ever tried it? Was thinking about trying something along these lines next year.

Here is a link that might be useful: Alton Brown Chili Powder

The trinity of dried peppers for Mexican cooking [such as mole sauces] is Ancho, Pasilla/Pasilla Bajio, and Guajillo peppers [which have different names when used fresh]. Anchos are probably the main variety if you just want to go with one. Anchos and Pasilla Bajio are big tall plants and heavy producers, while Guajillos are smallish plants.

The flavor of store bought "Chili powder" is mainly from the other ingredients [like cumin] based on how much most recipes call for [1 Tbs?), but once you start to use real chiles in the proper amount you will notice a definite change in over all flavor because the chiles form the base of the sauce. For instance, for chile con carne recipe with 3 lbs of ground meat I use at least nine dried peppers, a combination of three each of the above trinity (its not hot at all]. If I don't have enough of any I increase the proportions of the ones I have, substitute with dried anahiem, etc. The dried peppers [remove seeds] get soaked in warm water until soft and then put into a blender. The flavor stores better that way than with a powder because volatile flavor compounds are lost when they come into contact with air and powder particles have a larger surface area. Plus, making large quantities of powder is kind of a pain.

There are other similar peppers with their own unique flavors, such as chimayo if you want to go gourmet.

I would definitely not premix all the ingredients found in "Chile Powder" because you might want different amounts of the stronger flavored spices [cumin, oregano etc) for different recipes.

Good Luck

Thanks, so much for all of the information provided. I appreciate each and every one of you who took the time to help me. Now I know what peppers that I need to order and grow to make my own chilli powder. Again thanks a bunch....Lisa