Clean Your Grinder

You probably don’t think too much about what goes on inside your weed grinder. After all, that’s sort of the point. Flowers go in, nice fluffy ground herb comes out. What else is there to it?

This simplicity and “use it and forget it” mentality is part of the appeal of a weed grinder. Not only do they do a better job of preparing your herb for smoking or vaporizing, they do it without requiring any serious effort or thought from the user.

However, as with most things that get regular use, your weed grinder will do well with a bit of maintenance. 

Let’s take a look at just when -- and how -- you should clean your weed grinder.

How To Tell When It’s Time To Clean Your Weed Grinder

Grinders come in several varieties. The simplest consist of little more than one or two chambers where weed is ground and collected. More elaborate grinders incorporate several chambers with progressively finer mesh screens. This allows them to collect pollen which can be pressed into super potent kief.

This is something worth keeping in mind. If you have a large, multi-chambered grinder, you don’t want to be constantly fussing with cleaning it. After all, the process of collecting pollen is mostly a passive one. Each time you grind, you create more fine particulates of pollen, which gradually work their way down through the screens and into the collection chamber.

If you just have a simple one or two chamber grinder, this is less of a concern. You’re not trying to collect pollen, so you can freely scrape out any excess just to keep things clean and running smoothly.

But even if you have a fancy multi-chambered grinder, you still want to remove the stuff that is truly stuck.

You’ll find that the process of grinding tends to get small pieces of weed caught in the tight corners inside your grinder. Once lodged in there, these aren’t coming free from the action of the grinder alone. The sticky herb will work itself into a permanent home -- unless you take the time to scrape it out.

Making Use Of The Excess

If you regularly clean out all the nooks and crannies of your grinder, you’re not just cleaning out something undesirable. That’s still quality herb stuck to the sides of your grinder!

If you make a habit of removing this excess from your grinder regularly, that stuff is still perfectly smokable. Just scrape it out with a small plastic or metal tool and toss it on your bowl.

However, if you don’t keep up with things, you can actually end up with a pretty foul grinder. Remember, your weed is organic plant matter. Just like any other plant matter, it will eventually break down, decay, and rot.

It’s not something that will happen overnight. But neglect your grinder through a few months of heavy use and you could open it up to a moldy, smelly mess that you would never want to put your favorite herb into.

Deep Cleaning Your Weed Grinder

Should you let things get a bit out of hand and find your weed grinder getting extremely dirty, you can pull out the big guns for some serious cleaning.

Soak your grinder in isopropyl rubbing alcohol and use a tool like a Q-Tip or pipe cleaner to dislodge and remove all of the built-up gunk. You can find those here. With a bit of effort, you can get even the nastiest grinder back into service.

Of course, it’s a lot easier to just clean as you go along. Get yourself a small tool to accompany your grinder -- one specifically for removing those stuck-on bits.

But remember, even with regular scraping, you’re still likely to get a build-up of residue which can’t be removed through purely mechanical means. When this happens, it might be time to give your grinder a nice isopropyl rubbing alcohol bath, just to freshen things up a bit.

Stay Clean and Grind On

With a little bit of care, your grinder can serve you faithfully for years to come. Don’t neglect these few basic maintenance steps! It will go a long way towards preserving the quality of your grinder.