Can anyone here define hot or mild? Define the red hue of those last
chiles, perhaps then define the color and taste of the first two? a Red
Chile powder could be a Paprika, but would that be that mild or hot? So how
many expert chile affectionate actually worked at Gebhardt's actually tasked
to mixing chile?

So there are two points here; #1. The contest winner was (deliberately?)
vague and did not give you his/her recipe ingredients. #2. No one outside
of a select few Gebhardt's employees, present or former, can tell you the
answer you seek with any reliability or accuracy.

Realizing that all the chile powder you are talking is a commercial
venture ( always find the lowest price) and the fact that Chile's are a
product of nature, therefore subject to many variables, a specific batch
could be any number of chile varieties and from many different locations,
all of which will influence that batch's taste but I suspect all stay as
close to the Holy Trinity mix as they can. Face it us Gringos' talk smack
about heat and chiles but do not know the dif between a Chilipin and
Serrano,a Poblano or the Pisilla and so for Corporate sales you have to
stay close to or slightly below the heat average for large quantity sales.
Then recognize the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement has made it
hard for US growers to compete with chile peppers grown in Mexico and US
production has been down ever since hence most peppers are various Mexican
grown, not of the American SW quality you would find in say the Hatch or
other NM varieti or even the California Aniheims. Gebhardt as a corportate
enity must use the lowest price main ingredient they can and so are
dependent on their Quality Control.

I include a couple of links from some of my research that may help you
discover the answer for a quality belnd you seek on chiles.

http://www.theepicentre.com/Spices/chilevarieties.html

http://www.fiery-foods.com/dave/ndx_chili.asp this one may your biggest help

here is the home page of that which may have other info for you may come to
want:
http://www.fiery-foods.com/default.asp

When you are looking for a chile blend you like, go beyond the commerical
"everything in the cabinet" blends and concentrate on the specific chile
first, then the combos of various chiles and then add the "spices" cumin,
garlic, etc, etc. which you will see everyone adds to according to their
tastes. A lot of mouth (and other body heat ) heat does not necessarily
equate to good eats. Buy a batch of various pure chile powders and try each
by themselves in your recipes. Acquire the tases then blend.

Good luck
My best
de


"Rich" > wrote in message
...
>
> I was looking at the recipe for last year's winning recipe at the
> International Chili Society's World Championship Chili Cookoff, and there
> are a couple of ingredients I don't understand.
>
>
> "1 tablespoon hot chile powder
> 1 tablespoon mild chile power
> 5 tablespoons red chile powder"
>
>
> It's not at all clear to me what these three ingredients are. I buy my
> spices at Penzey's or at the local supermarket, and neither has products
> that are described as above. I presume that they are pure ground chiles,
> but which varieties of chiles? Any guesses?
>
> Also, does anybody know what ingredients are in Gebhardt® chile powder? I
> prefer to mix my own spices rather than use a premixed product. (The chili
> champion would probably rather do that, too, but when cooking in
> competition it's always a good idea to use the products of the contest
> sponsors.)
>
> Thanks for your help.
>
> I'm going to try this recipe as close to exactly as possible. The only
> changes I'll make intentionally are mixing my own Gebhardt®, if possible,
> and the substitution of homemade broths for the canned stuff called for in
> the recipe.
>
>
> -- Rich
>
>