Uncommon Weed Grinder Tips and Tricks

When someone thinks of important cannabis accessories, a weed grinder is many people’s first thought. You simply won’t extract the most THC out of your weed without first grinding your weed, and your grinder is also the first place you’ll look when you want to pack another hit.

Grinding weed is relatively simple, but there additional tips and tricks if you want sprinkles on top of your grinding experience.

First off, we’ve already covered some topics that will interest you in this regard.

Check out this detailed article on the best methods to collect grinder hash.

Understanding grinder screens is important if you want the best grinder for collecting kief, and grinder coins will help with kief collection too. You might consider looking at this list of grinder brands to understand what popular designs are out there.

 

How to get a Finer Grinder/More Course Grind?

There are different times when a fine grind might be better, and others where a coarse grind will be what you want. Nowadays some brands sell different sized grind plates that can be swapped-in to produce different types of grind consistencies, but many grinders simply don’t have that option. So what do you do? How can you get the same effect?

Grind Upside Down

It’s a simple idea: simply grind upside down. Without the drop-through holes separating the bud that has been ground to the necessary size, it’ll continue getting shredded to smaller bits.

Be Careful of the Kief Tray

If you have a 4-piece grinder, watch out for your kief tray. You generally don’t want to turn your kief tray flipped-over if it’s full of kief as some will get stuck to the underside of the screen, increasing the rate at which it will get clogged.

Attaining a coarse grind is even more basic. Simply stop grinding early. Yes, there will be some bud in between the teeth, and you’ll have to knock your grinder against something to get it out, but at least it will be coarse. This definitely isn’t the most elegant of solutions, but it’ll get the job done.

Grinder Stuck or Cross threaded

Cross threading your grinder is when the threads skip out of alignment in a way that wedges it closed. It’s a pain in the ass. This is one of those things that generally happens with low quality grinder brands with poor thought into thread design. This is another plus one for a threadless grinder.

But, Shit Happens, So How to Fix a Cross-Thread Grinder?

Simple answer: a hammer. You need to re-align the threading. There will be a portion of the threads that is on a different plane than the rest, this will be where the cross-threading happened.

Flip the grinder over and hit the underside of the lid in this spot. But this isn’t as simple as it sounds, and in fixing a cross-threaded grinder many actually end up making the problem worse.

A Last Ditch Way to Fix a Broken Weed Grinder

Use Lubricant – A last ditch choice is using some type of lubricant to help loosen the stuck spot. Add some water to help push the lubricant into the wedged threading.

Broken Grinder Teeth

Sadly, there’s almost nothing you can do for this. Throwing this grinder out is probably the best choice. You might be able to bend the tooth back into position, but it’s likely to break again, and then you might inhale aluminum particles.

If you’re tired of broken teeth, consider buying a stainless steel ZAM grinder, which is practically unbreakable.

Grinding Massive Amounts of Weed at Once

Generally, a coffee weed grinder is not a good choice. Generally. But if you need to grind an absolute shit-ton of weed, or maybe you’re just really lazy, then coffee grinder will work.

There are some electric weed grinders that would work better, but if you’re just looking for a quick way to get it done, your coffee grinder will work. You’ll just need to clean it.

How to Get Weed Out of Grinder

Properly dried and cured weed is sticky. It sticks to the teeth, the sides of the grinder, the screen, literally everywhere. So what’s the best way to get your weed out of your grinder?

We’ll skip over the obvious solution: your hands. The next up is a small shovel, or even a guitar pick or other small scoop. Some brands make kief scoops that could also function as a little weed shovel.

You could also consider just purchasing a three piece grinder. With a 4-piece grinder you have to worry about turning your kief over when trying to dump your weed directly from the container. With a three piece that’s no longer a concern. You also save all the kief that would have been separated. Some people like this, others don’t. Which are you?

Don’t Use 3D Printed Grinder

Just like any plastic, 3D printed material is not meant to be inhaled. Whenever this topic comes up, people like to mention that the material is bio-degradable and healthy to ingest. But you wouldn’t be ingesting, you would be inhaling it. After it’s been burned.  Check out this article for more info on the fumes released from burning 3d printing material. 

In other words, don’t use a 3D printed weed grinder.

Can You Grind Weed in a Mortar and Pestle?

You can, but you shouldn’t expect the same level of grind compared to a traditional grinder. Grinding in a mortar and pestle will smush the weed rather than shred it. It’s likely more trichomes and therefore THC would get stuck to the side of the mortar.

Conclusion:

Let’s be honest, grinding weed isn’t a difficult thing to do. It’s important if you want to get the most out of your weed, but it’s not a make or break situation.

Thankfully we’re built with the ability to break our weed up with our hands if we really want to, but if you’re not a barbarian, consider using the tips and tricks with an actual weed grinder. Check out the weed grinders we sell!