Adding dried peppers to the secondary

[YOpassDAmike]

How should I sanitize dried peppers to put in the secondary? Should I just chop them up and add them to a little water to boil them for 15 minutes and then put both the water and the peppers into the secondary? I do not want to soak in vodka as some may recommend. Will boiling the peppers release tannins or bad flavors? Should I also remove the seeds or not, I am assuming if I want it spicy to leave them in, but will seeds provide a vegetal taste to the beer with long contact time? Final question, how long do you guys usually keep your peppers in contact with the beer for?

 

[CU_tony]

I recently split a smash beer into multiple secondaries two of which were habanero tests.
I did 3.5g of fresh habanero de seeded and de veined and 3.5 roasted de seeded de veined and de skinned.
Both sets were soaked in vodka for 24 hrs before being racked onto.
I let these secondary for 1 week and ended up having to add .6 gal of the control smash to the roasted bottling bucket to try and even out the piquancy to my desired level.
Both bottles came out lovely and I will be tinkering with this recipe to make it even better!

While this isn't directly applicable since you are using dry peppers and don't want to use vodka, hopefully some insight may be gained.
Also, as for boiling the peppers, try a test and boil/chill a pepper water mixture and taste it, maybe that will reveal any off flavors if you can taste then over the spice!
As for the seeds, of you are looking for extreme heat the add those, if you want pepper flavor, I would only add the meat parts.
Either way I would de vein any pepper I would use.

 

[kh54s10]

I added 2 tablespoons of crushed red pepper flakes (the stuff you might sprinkle on a pizza) to a pale ale once. I put them in the boil with 5 or 10 minutes left. I also used T-58 yeast for it's peppery influence. I got a nice peppery flavor and a little heat on the lips from the pepper. It was a very good beer.