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two hands using marihuana grinder shred buds before rolling joint
two hands using marihuana grinder shred buds before rolling joint
Learn How To Clean A Weed Grinder Properly
If you don’t know how to clean a weed grinder, you’ve come to the right place. A weed grinder should be treated much like any other accessory that you use on a frequent basis. No one likes to eat dirty dishes, so what do you do? You clean them before using them for your next meal. A weed grinder should be treated in a similar way, and cleaning a weed grinder isn’t a complicated task that takes tons of experience to do.
You can clean your weed grinder in as little as five steps. There are also a few ways that you can use the cannabis material that’s left in the weed grinder to your advantage, but that’s for later.
For those that are new to cannabis and aren’t fully aware of what a weed grinder is yet, it’s good to take a look at that before diving into the details on how to clean it properly.
Contents
Weed Grinder
Even though there are hundreds of different slang terms in the field of cannabis, it’s nice to know that there isn’t some fancy slang term for a grinder. A grinder is just a grinder, nothing else. Newcomers to cannabis can all too often get confused due to the thousands of slang terms being used, and it’s not only specific to the measurements of weed quantities. Look at the term “sploof”. No one in their right mind would know that this term refers to a toilet paper roll that has been filled with scented dryer sheets in order to blow weed smoke into after they take a toke so that the smell will be concealed.
Also, look at the term “chronic”. Does this term sound like it could refer to weed in any way? No one would ever know what it means unless they were told about it. With a grinder, it’s nice and simple. There isn’t any translation from weed lingo to the English language involved with the term. Anyone can easily understand that the grinder will be used to grind the cannabis.
Do You Need A Grinder To Smoke Weed?
If you’re new to smoking cannabis, you’ll be glad to know that it’s not mandatory to have a grinder in your arsenal to relish in the weed smoking experience. Many people just use their fingers, a knife, or a pair of scissors to grind their weed. If you smoke weed often though, you might want to consider investing in a grinder to speed up the process and make it more convenient.
Grinding your cannabis does a few positive things:
All of these things lead to the end result of a better high. Because taste and smell in humans is linked together, you can see why grinding weed is important. If you’ve ever plugged your nose to scoff down the last few Brussel sprouts on your plate, then you’ll know that plugging your nose takes away some of the taste senses. Smell has quite a large impact on the flavor of things. If something doesn’t smell good to you, there’s a good chance you might also not enjoy the flavor of it.
When you use a grinder with your cannabis, a lot of the potent fragrances of it will be unlocked, and this will create a more enjoyable experience. The potency also increases when you grind your weed. Bigger chunks of weed don’t burn as easily, and this leads to less efficiency, which then leads to a poorer high in the end. Ground-up weed will burn much easier and more efficiently in comparison.
For those that have ever touched weed before, you’ll have a good idea of the stickiness that gets on your fingers after handling it. Trichomes are the sticky substance on the weed, and this is what contains the THC, which is what leads to the psychoactive effects that you experience after smoking it. When you’re using your fingers to bust up weed, the trichomes get all over your hands, and that’s a waste. Using a grinder reduces the number of trichomes that go to waste, and this leads to a more potent experience when it comes time to smoke it.
You Can Get Kief From Using A Grinder
If all of that wasn’t already enough to convince you to get a grinder, another nice thing about them is that kief is produced while using them. When you grind up weed, you’ll see mini crystals everywhere in the grinder. Kief consists of the cannabinoids and terpenes that enter a certain chamber of the grinder when you’re grinding up your cannabis. The chamber on the grinder where the kief enters is known as the kief catcher.
If you want an extra kick to your high, you can gather up some of that kief and add it to your joint or bowl when smoking it.
Using A Grinder Is More Convenient
Busting up weed with your hands is messy and it takes forever to do. Grinders speed things up so much that you can barely blink before you get a nice quantity of weed ground up and ready to smoke.
Trichomes tend to get over everything when you use your hands to bust up weed. Unless you’re near a bathroom, it’s not easy to get that stickiness off your hands, and this means your hands will end up touching something else and creating another mess.
Grinders Create A Better Smoking Experience
Tinier pieces of weed tend to burn better than the bigger pieces. You also won’t cough as much if you grind your weed up before taking a few tokes.
Using A Grinder Will Result In Cost-Savings
Even though there is an upfront cost of purchasing a grinder, the long-term savings of it will make up for it in the long-term.
Grinding your weed causes it to become more potent than weed isn’t grinded. This means that you won’t have to use as much weed to reach a similar high, and that means your weed stash will last longer, which results in cost savings every time you go to smoke.
What Are Some Reasons To Clean Your Grinder?
1. It Reduces Your Chances Of Becoming Sick
Most people just like to purchase their weed without ever thinking of the background of it and how it came to be. That weed you’re smoking used to be an actual plant, and plants begin to decompose after a while. When things start to decompose, bacteria begin to take over, and it could start taking over your grinder if it contains any kief inside of it. For those that weren’t paying attention in grade 7 science class, bacteria can lead to illness. If you want to reduce your chances of getting ill, then you’ll want to clean your grinder on a routine basis.
2. Cleaning Your Grinder Will Help It Function Better
Like most things, doing a routine cleaning job on them makes them work more efficiently. Cannabis is sticky, and that stickiness will start to take over your grinder if you don’t clean it periodically. No one wants to deal with a grinder that doesn’t function properly. You shouldn’t have to exert a ton of force to turn your grinder. If you are having to do that, then it definitely needs a good clean. Clean your grinder and you’ll thank yourself later for it when you can easily grind your weed with no frustration.
3. The Grinder Will Last Longer
Everything in life will break down eventually. Your car will break down, your house will begin needing repairs, and even your body. A cannabis grinder is no different. The teeth will begin to get dull over time and not work as well as they once did.
To prolong the life of your grinder, you’ll want to give it a good clean to keep those teeth nice and sharp.
When Is The Best Time To Clean Your Grinder?
Now that you’re aware of the many benefits of cleaning your grinder, you might be wondering when the best time to clean it is. You should typically clean it around every one to two months. This will depend on how much you’re using it to grind cannabis. If you’re using it multiple times a day, then you’re obviously going to have to clean it more often than if you’re only using it once a month. The more you use it, the more trichomes will build up in it, and this means the faster it’ll get sticky and dirty. A good rule of thumb is to just clean it once every two months if you don’t use it very often.
What Areas Of The Grinder Need To Be Cleaned?
There are some grinders on the market that contain different parts. You can purchase basic grinders that don’t have much to them, but others can get pretty advanced.
A basic single-chamber cannabis grinder will contain two parts:
The teeth are located inside the chamber and the lid, and these are what grind up all of the weed when you twist it. The teeth will look like little sharp pegs standing out everywhere.
When you insert your cannabis into the bowl, you seal the lid closed by twisting it, and you should be all set. The majority of grinders will work the same way, but some just have a few bonuses to them.
What About Two-Chamber Grinders?
Two-chamber grinders contain three different pieces. They will appear to be the same as the single-chamber grinder on the outside, but the two-chamber grinders have a collection bowl included with them. This collection bowl will collect kief when you grind up your cannabis. While it’s a nice bonus to have, keep in mind that you’ll now have to clean that part as well, in addition to the rest of the grinder.
Some grinders have a screen in between the collection chamber and the grinding chamber. This screen results in yet another piece that you need to clean. In total, there should be four pieces to clean on two-chamber grinders:
Three-Chamber Grinder
On a three-chamber grinder, the collection chamber will have a screen and yet another chamber below it. When you grind up your weed, the bigger chunks will gather above the screen while the kief will go through the screen into the lower chamber.
As a result, there is a total of six areas of this grinder that you need to clean regularly:
While all of the new moving parts on each chambered grinder might get complicated, it’s really pretty simple once you take a look at them all. Most people can get away with a single-chamber grinder, but for those that are really into cannabis, a triple-chamber grinder is a way to go.
How Do You Clean Cannabis Grinders?
Because there are so many different types of grinders on the market, cleaning them all boils down to what type of grinder you have. They can be made from different materials, come in many different shapes, and can range from being very small to a lot bigger in size.
If you have a massively sized grinder on your hands, then you’ll want to keep that thing as clean as possible.
What Is The Material Used In Grinders?
One important part in figuring out how to clean a weed grinder boils down to what type of material the grinder is made out of.
If you have a metal grinder, ensure you keep it away from water because it will rust over time. If you have an acrylic grinder, keep it away from isopropyl alcohol because it will warp your grinder out of shape. Many people that go to clean their grinders might not know these details and later face the frustration of a rusted or warped grinder because they weren’t aware of a can and can’t be used to clean it.
Knowing what material your grinder is manufactured with is the first step before you even consider cleaning it. For those that bought some sort of hybrid metal/plastic grinder, then you’ll have to exercise a lot more care when cleaning it.
What Tools Are Required To Clean A Grinder?
What Are The Steps To Clean Your Grinder?
1. Take Your Grinder Apart
The first step is to take your grinder apart without breaking any pieces in it. For the three-chamber and four-chamber grinders, there will be:
For those that have two or three-chamber grinders, you won’t have as many parts to clean. There are some grinders out there that include a removable screen located right between the collection chamber and the kief chamber that’s situated underneath it. Exercise caution when you’re removing the screen because it’s fairly delicate. If you end up exerting too much force when trying to get the screen out, it could easily break, and you don’t want that ruining your cleaning experience.
2. Freezer
The freezer step isn’t absolutely necessary, but the rest of the process will be much simpler if you do it.
After you’ve taken apart your grinder, you just put all of the pieces inside a freezer for about a half-hour. Doing this will freeze and end up hardening all of the residue and stickiness inside the grinder. After the 30 minutes is up, take out your grinder parts very carefully because when plastic parts reach freezing temperatures, they can crack and break very easily.
3. Brush And Scrape
Once you’ve taken all of the parts outside of the freezer and placed them on your cutting board or plate, give them a gentle tap. Some of the frozen residues should fall off onto the plate as you’re doing that.
After that, grab your toothbrush and start gently brushing every part of the grinder. A tiny watercolor paintbrush works well for this step, as well. If you’re brushing the grinder with your toothbrush and see some areas where the residue isn’t coming off, then grab your toothpick and scrape at it gently.
Ensure that you don’t throw the excess residue that you scrape out of your grinder away. Even though it looks like it might be worthless, it’s still pretty potent stuff.
Now that the step that requires the most effort is done, you can give yourself a pat on the back. For those that didn’t want to put their grinder parts in the freezer for the extra half hour, you’re probably still trying to scrape pieces out of it. Freezing the moving parts speeds up the process by double.
4. Now Comes The Water/Alcohol
When it comes to this step, there will be two paths that you need to choose from.
If you have a metal grinder, you’ll be taking all of your grinder pieces and putting them in a bag of isopropyl alcohol. Doing so will help get rid of the pesky bacteria that are sitting in areas that you couldn’t reach. If you want to loosen up tiny chunks of cannabis that might not be coming off, try aggravating it a bit by giving the bag a good shake. After all of the plant material has come off the grinder, give it a good chance to soak for a bit. When the isopropyl alcohol in the bag starts to turn a brownish color, that’s a good sign that a lot of the pieces have come off the grinder.
If you have a plastic grinder, you’ll have to get a kettle or a pot on a stove and boil up some water. After that, lower your pieces in the boiling water. Once all of the grinder pieces are in the water, lower the heat so that it’s only boiling nice and gently. Leave the grinder parts in the gently boiling water for about a minute.
After that, take all of the parts out of the pot with some tongs and then lay them down on a dry towel. Give them about ten minutes to simmer off and dry completely.
5. Put Your Grinder Back Together
Once you’ve cooled off your grinder pieces, you can now put it back together. Even though this process seems laborious, it’s not all that bad once you get the hang of it.
If you remembered the part where you weren’t supposed to throw out any of the residues that you scraped out of the grinder away, it’s good to go over why.
That residue is pure kief and it’s known to be much more potent and of higher quality than the regular kief that results directly after grinding. You don’t want to discard it at all costs.
How Do You Use Kief After Retrieving It From Your Grinder?
There are a few ways you can use the kief:
There are many different ways to use kief, and this is just a small list out of the dozens of different ways to make use of it. Cannabis is about using your creativity, and that’s not only after you’ve taken a few tokes!