If you’re new to cannabis, you may be unfamiliar with grinders. But know: they are the most important tool you could have. They keep your fingers clean, simplify the weed rolling process, and above all else, give you an opportunity to recycle weed with kief. Have a seat, my friend, let’s talk grinders, kief, and the best grinders for making it.
What is the Best Grinder for Collecting Kief?
There are many types of herb grinders, the two-piece, three-piece, and four-piece being the most common. The two-piece grinders only have a top and a grinding compartment. They are the most basic and cheapest grinders possible. See: those plastic grinders at every 7-Eleven in a legal state. They’re great for breaking your buds, but won’t help much with catching kief. Three-piece grinders have a top, a grinding compartment, and a flower catcher where the ground nugs land. Much like two-piece grinders, three-piecers are great for grinding flower, but terrible for kief accumulation. Four-piece grinders are the best of the best. Four-piece grinders have a top, a grinding compartment, a flower catcher, AND a kief catcher at the bottom. Flower lands on top of a mesh screen that kief sifts through to provide you with a stockpile of that resiny goodness. To maximize kief yield, you can toss a coin or a guitar pick into the flower catcher compartment, and shake your grinder before pouring out the ground buds. While all of these grinders will break down your weed, only the four-piece grinder will adequately collect your kief and allow your cannabis to be the gift that keeps on giving. If that’s the goal, then four-piecers are definitely the right choice for you. Just make sure to get an aluminum one as they last the longest and provide the best functionality.
What is a Grinder?
Grinders are basically circular devices with spikes in the middle that help turn your buds into smokeable weed flakes. Ground buds burn smoother, roll easier, and overall provide a better smoking experience than pulling apart your flower with your fingers.
What are the Benefits of Using a Grinder?
Smokability
Grinders are just necessary. Grinders help break up your buds, which will make them last a lot longer. In addition to lasting longer, grinders help your buds burn smoother because your flower is finer and more combustible.
Cleanliness
Grinders keep your fingers clean and resin-free. We all know that once you break weed apart with your fingers, that sticky-ass plant resin and cannabis scent is stuck to your fingers until you come across some actual dishwashing soap. That milk and honey hand soap from Bath and Body Works won’t cut it.
Kief
Above all else, the biggest benefit to using a grinder with your cannabis is that you’re able to collect kief.
What is Kief?
You know when you look at your nugs and they have all those sticky little white crystals all over them? Those crystals are called trichomes. Trichomes are odorous resin glands that cannabis plants grow as a defense mechanism against herbivores. When you grind your weed, those trichomes fall off the buds into a pile of cannabis powder called kief, also known as dry sift, or pollen. From an eye test, we associate higher quality cannabis with higher levels of trichome production; so the better your weed, the more kief that you’ll catch.
How Do You Use Kief?
The good news is kief contains active terpenes and cannabinoids, so it can still get you high. The better news is there are sooo many ways to use it.
Add It To Your Bowls/Joints
The simplest way to use kief is to straight-up smoke it. This can be done by loading a bowl with kief or rolling a joint of it. While this will get you high, it proves to be an extremely hash smoking experience. Because of that, the best way to smoke kief is by sprinkling it on top of a bowl, a process called crowning, or inside of a joint. By adding kief to your bowls or joints, you’ll increase their potency drastically, overall creating a harder hitting smoke and longer lasting high.
Make a Twax Joint
If you want to get freaky with it, you can use kief to create a twax joint. A twax joint is a joint that’s been coated with wax then rolled around in kief for maximum potency.
Make Rosin Dabs
You can create your own dabs at home by using a hair straightener to press dried flower between parchment paper. This process squeezes the trichomes until they burst, leaving you with smokable plant rosin. Though flower works for this process, pressing kief is a way better choice due to higher yields.
Make Moon Rocks
One of the best ways to use kief is to make moon rocks. Moon rocks are cannabis nugs covered in hash oil then rolled in kief. It’s essentially what you did with a twax joint, sans the rolling paper. Once your moon rocks dry, you can smoke them alone, or use them to top bowls and joints.