Tip for the pros
For most of you that have some years of experience in the marijuana scene, this section won’t offer any break-through insights. So we tried to incorporate some tips and tricks that we ourselves thought to be quite useful. And with some modesty, we dare to say that this was not our first year of smoking cannabis.
- For a more finely ground herb, there’s a simple trick. Grab ahold of your grinder and turn in upside down. This way you ensure the weed is ground exactly to your liking. This especially comes in handy when your good old grinder has been around for some years and the teeth are starting to lose their edge.
- For an entirely new Cannabis sensation, try Cannabis Oil. Of course, you can buy your oil online, but it’s actually quite easy to make it at home. Try our very easy recipe to make your own cannabis oil.
When you have just bought your first grinder, or are considering buying one, here are some more tips for when you’re just getting started.
The basics – the difference between a 2 piece and a 4 piece.
These are the two most common varieties in the market. A 2 piece grinder is comprised, as the name suggests, of two pieces: a top lid and a bottom. Both have grinding teeth on the inside. You just put your herb in just off the middle, to ensure the teeth can do their work, close the lid and rotate top and bottom in opposite directions. When you feel the marijuana is ground to your liking (just have a look inside and continue grinding otherwise) tap the bottom on your table to release the weed and start doing your magic. A 4 piece works in the exact same way, with two major difference.
Looked at from the top, the lid and second piece work almost the same as a two piece. The second piece has holes in the bottom which allow the weed to pass through to the compartment between the second and third piece once ground finely enough. The second and third piece are usually fixed together by screwing the two parts together (this also goes for the third and fourth piece). The compartment between the second and third piece thus work as a sort of reservoir. The bottom of the third piece is then made from some kind of sieve. This works as a filter. The ground weed isn’t small enough to pass through the filter and stays in the second compartment. While grinding though, something called kief can fall from the cannabis. These are crystal-like particles that fall off the cannabis flowers and pass the filter on the bottom of the third piece to fall into the compartment between the third and fourth piece. It typically contains much more THC, one of the active substances in marijuana.
Tips for the top compartment
- When first grinding the best tip is to not put the weed exactly in the middle. You’ll notice soon enough that this will make it very difficult to close the lid. Moreover, there aren’t any grinding teeth there. So always make sure you put your cannabis in just beside the middle
- As soon as you’re ready to grind you’ll notice that it takes some effort to turn and move the bottom and top. The weed inside the grinder heightens the friction, so this is very common. When you get through the first two or three movements the grinding experience should smoothen. Also, this is the reason all more experienced smokers look for the sharpest grinding teeth they can get their hands on. And why they are willing to pay quite a lot more for a high-quality grinder such as the Santa Cruz.
- When using a four piece a common problem is that the marijuana doesn’t fall through the holes but gets pushed to the edges of the top compartment (using a 2 piece this problem occurs also, but is often noticed earlier because you look inside more often). A great feature some grinders employ is small pieces of aluminum on the edge of the bottom part that pushes the weed back to the center of the grinder to get more finely ground.
Tips for the second compartment
- When you notice that less weed is coming through and you have to grind longer and longer, take a look at the holes in the second piece. After a while, little piece of weed may get stuck in the hole because of the stickiness of some strains of weed. Just take a toothpick for example and push them through. When you start to encounter this effect more often it might be time to clean your grinder.
Tips for the third compartment
- The pollen collector as it is commonly referred to is the last compartment of the most common 4 piece grinder. It collects the pollen, the little crystals or kief with high concentrations of THC. On a larger scale, this kief is used to press hasjies with. For household use, use a scraper (commonly provided with your grinder) or a little piece of paper to scrape the pollen from the bottom. Sprinkle a little in jour joint before rolling, use in your vaporizer or mix it through your brownie dough for an extra kick. Just a small amount of this fairy dust is enough to lighten the spirits.
What to look for in a Weed Grinder?
Especially when you’re considering a weed grinder that you want to use more often than once or twice a year, for all you skateboarders out there, there’s quite the range of features to look out for when buying on. Most of these features, of course, come at a price. So read carefully through this section to decide which features are worth paying a little extra for. Typically cheaper weed grinders are much lower in quality. This can have some serious disadvantages.
Plastic. First, a common mistake is to go for a plastic weed grinder. The grinding teeth of these type of grinders break off quite easily. And in general, the teeth of these weed grinders wear off much quicker than metal ones, making you spend more money in the long run. Also plastic is much harder to clean. Usually, an aluminum weed grinder is worth your dollar.
Magnets. You might have found a lot of weed grinders mentioning a range of different quality magnets incorporated in their weed grinders. The most important use of this is that it holds the lid better attached to the rest. That way, when you knock it over accidentally you won’t immediately throw your weed all over the floor.
Quality aluminum. The first thing to consider is the grade of your aluminum. A lot of weed grinders praise themselves with aircraft-grade aluminum. This may sound like a joke, but actually, it points to a type of aluminum which is actually used industrially to manufacture for example airplane wings and yachts. This kind of aluminum is a little stronger than other types of aluminum and makes sure little chips or flakes of aluminum fall of less easily. Second anodized aluminum usually is usually worth it to spend a few extra bucks on. Through the electrochemical process of anodizing, a thin layer of corrosion-resistant material is formed. This makes the surface more durable and less prone to scratches. Also, it makes sure the more sticky herbs don’t stick to the grinder. This is especially annoying when parts of cannabis get stuck in the holes of the second piece between the first and second compartment.
