I bought a dehydrator over the weekend and dried about 11 pods. Took about 8.5 hours, and they seem to have a better consistency than oven-dried pods. Now I'm ready to grind them into powder, so I ask all you grinding experts out there: what all do you grind? Jane Butel says (in her Chili Madness book) that you should to remove the seeds and membranes before grinding. Two things come to mind: do the seeds alter the taste of the powder, and won't you be losing a lot of the heat by removing the membrane? I did a test run by grinding some full (seeds and all, minus stems, of course) oven-dried cayenne with a mortar and pestle, and the results were less than satisfactory, in both texture and taste. Sounds like I need to invest a few bucks in another coffee/spice grinder... Also, does "chile caribe" mean different things to different people? I've seen one source describe it almost as a paste of dried chiles and -- I forget which -- either water or oil, blended. Jane Butel (in the same book) says you make chile caribe by tearing dried chiles into 1/4" pieces, resulting in something that almost resembles pepper flakes. Not a big deal, just noticing some disparity as to its physical state. Steve