How To Clean A Herb Grinder: The Simple Guide

Herb grinding can be one of the messiest and most inconvenient aspects of vaping. After you’ve used an herb grinder for a while, it becomes so caked with dense, sticky fragments that it becomes almost impossible to turn. All of the grinder’s holes become plugged, and you end up spending more time clearing the holes with your pick than you do actually grinding your herbs. When you’ve finally finished unblocking the holes, what you have on the other side isn’t the even, fluffy grind that gives you a great vaping experience – it’s a clumpy mess that isn’t too different from just breaking up the buds by hand. It’s one thing if you’re still using the disposable plastic grinder that came with your vaporizer. You can always throw that away and get another one – but what if you’re using an expensive grinder that you invested a significant amount of money to purchase? Wouldn’t it be great if you could clean your herb grinder and have grinding not be such a tedious chore? Well, you can and this simple herb grinder cleaning guide is going to teach you how to do it.

Basic Grinder Cleaning Tips: How to Keep Your Grinder Turning Smoothly

The best way to keep your grinder turning smoothly and prolong a deep-cleaning as long as possible is by giving the grinder a quick cleaning after each time you use it. A metal dab tool works well for dislodging any clumps stuck in the grinder’s holes. Use a stiff brush to clear away any powdery bits. If you don’t have a brush devoted to cleaning your grinder, an old toothbrush can work. To keep your grinder working its best, you should avoid overloading it. If you’re only grinding one bud at a time, a good grinder should have no difficulty breaking the woody material up. If you’re grinding several buds at once, though, the coarse material will end up getting caught between the grinder’s teeth. Overloading your grinder only makes it more difficult to clean in the long run. If you’re here, though, chances are that your grinder has already gotten past the point where a quick cleaning will make a difference. What you need is a deeper cleaning that gets your grinder back to its original condition. So, let’s learn the best way to clean an herb grinder.

How to Clean a Wood or Plastic Herb Grinder?

Wood and plastic herb grinders have their benefits. Wood is beautiful and feels great in the hand; a wood herb grinder can feel like a true luxury product. Plastic grinders, on the other hand, are nice because they’re inexpensive. You can’t clean a wood or plastic herb grinder with solvents, though, because a solvent can ruin the finish of a wood grinder and may react chemically with a plastic grinder. So, you’ll need to use a gentler cleaning technique. We carry a grinder cleaning soap from Cali Crusher that works well with most types of herb grinders and can really power through sticky herb residues. You can also use household soap like Dr. Bronner’s, although it may not loosen the residue quite as easily. Before you start cleaning your wood or plastic grinder with soap, though, you need to give yourself a bit of a mechanical advantage – and you’ll do that by freezing your grinder. First, use a brush to remove the pollen and herb residue from your grinder as completely as possible. Move the herb particles to a container for later use. Disassemble the grinder completely. Place it on a tray or in a plastic bag and leave it in the freezer for a half hour. When you remove the grinder from the freezer, the sticky resins that make the grinder difficult to clean will be brittle, thus making them easier to scrape away. Use a brush or a metal dab tool to remove the particles. Collect the particles for later use. The last step in cleaning your plastic or wood grinder is filling a bowl or your sink with warm, soapy water and scrubbing the grinder with a brush. This is another situation where an old toothbrush can come in handy. The soap breaks up any remaining resin, and the brush clears it away. Soap isn’t the most effective solvent for some types of sticky resins, so you may need to use a good amount of elbow grease to get your grinder fully clean. Once you’ve done that, rinse the grinder and allow it to dry completely before you resume using it.

How to Clean a Metal Herb Grinder?

A metal herb grinder may not be as pretty as a wood grinder, but metal does have a major benefit in that you can clean it with just about anything without worrying that you’ll damage the finish. The one caveat here is that a metal herb grinder will sometimes have a non-stick coating. If you have a non-stick grinder, you’ll want to check with the manufacturer before following these instructions to ensure that the coating is alcohol safe. If the coating isn’t alcohol safe, you’ll need to clean your grinder using soap and water as described above. To clean your metal grinder, you’ll start by disassembling it completely and removing as much residue as possible with a brush or metal pick. Collect the residue in a container for later use. If the grinder has any rubber, silicone or plastic components, remove them and set them aside. Continue by putting the disassembled grinder in a bowl or plastic bag and submerging the grinder in rubbing alcohol. Alcohol is the perfect solvent for cleaning a metal grinder because the sticky resins that make the grinder difficult to turn are alcohol soluble. If the grinder isn’t too dirty, you can leave it submerged for an hour or two. If it’s extremely dirty, you’ll probably want to leave it submerged overnight to ensure that the resins are completely dissolved. The best part about using alcohol to clean an herb grinder is that it does the work for you. When you remove the grinder from the alcohol, rinse it thoroughly in running water to remove any remaining herb particles. Allow the grinder to dry completely, and it’ll work just as well as it any remaining herb particles. Allow the grinder to dry completely, and it’ll work just as well as it did the day you bought it.