Yes I'm a big fan of doing this, usually taste some before I formulate my recipe, and I'll also usually sample a few grains of each before I mill my grain. I think I could eat Maris Otter straight out of the bucket :D.
I've had very good results with just throwing the dehydrated pepper directly in the secondary. I've made an ancho chile mead this way that turned out very good as well as a smoked chipotle porter where I used "morita" chiles.
Any updates on this? I'm curious to see how it turned out. If it's bad, I highly suggest just putting it somewhere and forgetting about it for a while. Let us know though.
Thanks.