The Best Weed Grinder | Reviews By Wirecutter - The New York Times

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Why you should trust us

Who this is for

How we picked and tested

Top pick: Flower Mill Next Gen Premium 2.5" Stainless Series

Runner-up: Santa Cruz Shredder Medium 4-Piece

Upgrade pick: Herb Ripper Classic 4-Piece

How to clean a cannabis grinder

Other cannabis grinders worth considering

The competition

FYI

After a new round of testing, the Flower Mill Next Gen Premium 2.5" Stainless Series is now our top pick. It churns through even the stickiest buds with ease and is simpler than most models to clean.

April 2025

When you’re preparing cannabis, a quality grinder can save you time and effort. To quickly and easily process dried flowers into ground material to pack into a vaporizer or to smoke, we reach for the Flower Mill Next Gen Premium 2.5" Stainless Series.

A reliable grind ensures smoother vaping or smoking. Compared with lesser models, the Next Gen Premium — which technically is not a grinder but a mill — churns finely, smoothly, and evenly, producing consistent results. Like our upgrade pick, the Herb Ripper Classic 4-Piece, the Flower Mill is easier on wrists than the competition.

Everything we recommend

Top pick

The best cannabis grinder

Flower Mill Next Gen Premium 2.5" Stainless Series

Made of both stainless steel and aluminum, this model turns super smoothly, producing consistently fine results and efficiently catching pollen. Embedded magnets enhance comfort and keep your material securely in place.

$80 from Headshop$95 from Flower Mill

Runner-up

A reliable aluminum grinder

Santa Cruz Shredder Medium 4-Piece

A lighter-weight device, this aluminum model tears through cannabis nearly as well as our top pick. As with any grinder with teeth, residue can accumulate, necessitating more-frequent cleaning.

$80 from Amazon$80 from Santa Cruz Shredder

Upgrade pick

A stainless steel workhorse

Herb Ripper Classic 4-Piece

If you prefer a grinder with teeth and made entirely of stainless steel, this hefty model has embedded magnets that make its grinding motion extra smooth. It’s trickier to clean than our top pick, though.

$129 from The RipperWhy buy a grinder?

• Precise prep

  Uniformly ground cannabis often heats more evenly, and thus more efficiently, than uneven chunks torn by hand.

• Less effort, less mess

  Using a grinder to prepare dried flowers saves time, and your fingertips won’t get sticky.

Top pick

The best cannabis grinder

Flower Mill Next Gen Premium 2.5" Stainless Series

Made of both stainless steel and aluminum, this model turns super smoothly, producing consistently fine results and efficiently catching pollen. Embedded magnets enhance comfort and keep your material securely in place.

$80 from Headshop$95 from Flower Mill

Flower Mill’s cannabis grinders, including the Next Gen Premium 2.5" Stainless Series, aren’t grinders in the traditional sense: They are mills. Rather than grinding with teeth, our top pick uses a rotating plate to gently crumble flower through a screen, producing a fluffier, more even consistency. This design reduces resistance and clogging, making the mill easier to use, especially for people with hand-mobility challenges (an optional comfort-enhancing silicone grip is available for $10). With no sharp teeth in this model, there’s less potential for waste, and cleaning it is easier.

Runner-up

A reliable aluminum grinder

Santa Cruz Shredder Medium 4-Piece

A lighter-weight device, this aluminum model tears through cannabis nearly as well as our top pick. As with any grinder with teeth, residue can accumulate, necessitating more-frequent cleaning.

$80 from Amazon$80 from Santa Cruz Shredder

A traditional grinder with teeth, the all-aluminum Santa Cruz Shredder Medium 4-Piece represents an excellent value in a category littered with options reported to flake and even break. Teeth require more cleaning because residue can accumulate. But with proper care and maintenance, this aluminum model can serve you for years.

Upgrade pick

A stainless steel workhorse

Herb Ripper Classic 4-Piece

If you prefer a grinder with teeth and made entirely of stainless steel, this hefty model has embedded magnets that make its grinding motion extra smooth. It’s trickier to clean than our top pick, though.

$129 from The Ripper

If you want a traditional grinder with teeth, and you routinely grind large quantities of super-sticky strains, an all-stainless grinder may be worth the investment. The Herb Ripper Classic 4-Piece is an absolute pleasure to use — and it’s easier than most grinders with teeth to keep clean. (The Classic comes in a three- or four-piece set. We think the four-piece set is the one to get, but the three-piece version is also excellent.) Embedded magnets help make the grinding process especially smooth. This grinder feels weighty in the hand yet relatively compact.

Why you should trust us

I’m the author of Wirecutter’s guide to portable vaporizers. To review grinders for processing cannabis, previous authors and I spoke with both experts and amateur enthusiasts, getting a sense of what matters and how to get the most from any grinder.

• Since 2016, we’ve tested 16 grinders that have ranged in price from $6 to $130.
• Previous authors of this guide and I have interviewed several experts, including Bud, the reviewer at The Vape Critic, and Buzz, of Vaporizer Wizard. (Both sites include affiliate links for some products they recommend, as explained in The Vape Critic’s disclosure page and Vaporizer Wizard’s disclosure page.) We also spoke with staff members at 15 cannabis dispensaries around the country to learn about top-selling items at their shops and what they’d buy for family and friends.
• Like all Wirecutter journalists, I review and test products with complete editorial independence. I’m never made aware of any business implications of my editorial recommendations. Read more about our editorial standards.

Who this is for

Despite the rise in concentrates, waxes, edibles, and a host of prepared cannabis products, buying and using regular cannabis flowers remains a popular option for good reason: versatility. Most people smoking, vaporizing, or cooking with cannabis can benefit from a grinder.

With a grinder you can quickly and easily turn dense, sticky buds into material that heats evenly and efficiently. If you partake only on occasion, an inexpensive model can do enough to make your rare indulgence all the better. But if you regularly reach for a vaporizer, roll joints, or just enjoy an even bowl burn, the investment in a high-end cannabis grinder pays off by providing more bang for your bud. Though cheap grinders sometimes break, a high-quality grinder is an investment that should last for years.

Note: Grinders are legal — unless you use them with a substance that federal and/or local law says is illegal. Cannabis is illegal in some places.

How we picked and tested

Over the decade since we first published this guide, we’ve considered dozens of models recommended by expert and amateur reviewers alike.

We’ve focused on “medium” grinders in the 2-inch-diameter range — large enough to grind herbs for multiple sessions but not so big that they take up too much space. And we’ve looked for three- and four-piece models that allow ground material to fall through into a collection chamber; letting gravity do the collection work is easier and less time-consuming than picking cannabis from between sharp teeth (as you would need to do when using a two-piece grinder).

Not everyone who casually reaches for a vaporizer from time to time has much use for separating the “pollen” or “kief” (the highly potent, crystal-like dust on the leaves of cannabis plants) from the rest of the material. But a kief-catching mesh screen can be nice to have, especially if you regularly process larger amounts of cannabis.

Best-selling and top-rated grinders that fit our initial criteria start at just $10. When you’re shopping online, however, recognizing the difference between inexpensive grinders and models that cost more than $100 can be difficult. When you’re just staring at pictures, it’s easy to gloss over claims about sharper teeth or better materials. But when you twist a quality grinder in your hands, the differences jump out at you as it threads together with ease and glides and grinds more smoothly.

We evaluated cannabis grinders based on the following factors:

• No binding when grinding: Some modern cannabis strains can produce flowers with especially dense buds that are hard to grind. The best grinders have teeth that slice through these buds instead of binding while you try to force them through. The shape, sharpness, and number of teeth can all contribute to a model’s grinding ability.
• Evenness of grinds: Uniformly ground cannabis often heats more evenly, and thus more efficiently, than uneven chunks torn by hand. Buzz at Vaporizer Wizard prefers to get a finer grind for conduction vaporizers or something a little coarser that lets air through for convection vaporizers. A slightly coarser grind is more flexible, though. To get a finer grind, all you need to do is give your flowers a few extra twists with the grinder upside down; that keeps the material from falling through the holes into the collection tray, and it creates finer results when you flip the grinder back over. Because preferences and uses vary, in our testing we focused on smooth and even grinds more than on exact granularity.
• Easy to empty: A good three- or four-piece grinder should let most of the material fall through the holes between the teeth and into the collection chamber. It’s no fun to sit around picking tiny leafy chunks from between sharp metal teeth. Yes, a knock or two normally dislodges stuck buds, but sticky cannabis strains can stubbornly cling to tiny crevices. We looked for models that didn’t hold herbs hostage.
• Durability and support: A hunk of aluminum or steel isn’t easy to damage, but accidents happen. Acrylic tops can crack, and cross-threading two pieces when you’re screwing them together can damage the threads. The pressure-fit and glued-in magnets that hold on the top grinding plate can pop out. Teeth can dull and begin to bind. In short-term testing, we can’t replicate the type of use and abuse a grinder is likely to see over years of ownership. But when we examined grinders in person and side by side, the variations in construction quality were obvious. Some models felt cheap, squeaked and groaned when used, and had large, visible seams. The best models, by contrast, felt precision-machined, with seams that disappeared from sight and quietly glided across their threads. And if you’re going to spend more than the minimum to get a well-made grinder, it’s also nice to buy from a company that stands behind its products. So we noted the warranty and support options from each company, too.

Top pick: Flower Mill Next Gen Premium 2.5" Stainless Series

Top pick

The best cannabis grinder

Flower Mill Next Gen Premium 2.5" Stainless Series

Made of both stainless steel and aluminum, this model turns super smoothly, producing consistently fine results and efficiently catching pollen. Embedded magnets enhance comfort and keep your material securely in place.

$80 from Headshop$95 from Flower Mill

The Flower Mill Next Gen Premium 2.5" Stainless Series is in a class of its own. Instead of grinding flower with teeth, this Flower Mill model “mills” it with a stainless steel rotating plate that gently crumbles material through a screen, creating a fluffier result — even with sticky strains — than more traditional grinders can. This design also makes it less physically demanding to use, even when you’re grinding large amounts of material, as the process involves less resistance as well as less clogging.

No teeth equals easier — and less frequent — cleaning. Without metal teeth for flower to stick to, a Flower Mill model doesn’t need cleaning as often as our other picks do. When you do have to clean it, simply disassemble it and dunk it in a 10-minute isopropyl alcohol soak and then use a brush to remove any remaining material.

This model catches pollen better than the competition. Compared with grinding, milling makes it easier for pollen (also called kief) to drop through the included, removable screen — the results in this regard were the best of any grinders we’ve tested thus far.

A smaller size is available. The Next Gen Premium 2.0" Stainless Series typically costs $20 less than the 2.5-inch version we recommend. The company has no silicone-grip accessory to fit this smaller version.

Note: We haven’t tested the all-aluminum version of this model. Some customer reviews report that a previous version of the all-aluminum mills they bought created metallic flakes. That specific model is no longer sold.

The Flower Mill comes with a medium plate. Additional plates (four available) cost $14 each. Michael Hession/NYT WirecutterAn optional silicone sleeve ($10) enhances grip. It’s available only for the 2.5-inch version of our top pick. Michael Hession/NYT Wirecutter

Flower Mill backs its products with a limited lifetime warranty if you register your purchase within 30 days.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

Only one plate (medium) is included. Four other plates (extra fine, fine, coarse, and extra coarse) are available at $14 each. If you prefer working with a more coarse grind, you need to purchase an additional screen or two.

Runner-up: Santa Cruz Shredder Medium 4-Piece

Runner-up

A reliable aluminum grinder

Santa Cruz Shredder Medium 4-Piece

A lighter-weight device, this aluminum model tears through cannabis nearly as well as our top pick. As with any grinder with teeth, residue can accumulate, necessitating more-frequent cleaning.

$80 from Amazon$80 from Santa Cruz Shredder

Santa Cruz Shredder’s three- and four-piece grinders are the best all-aluminum grinders — with the sharpest teeth and smoothest threads — we’ve encountered. They’ve held up, surprisingly well, over several years of long-term testing for this guide. In line with our testing protocol, we tested the Santa Cruz Shredder Medium 4-Piece (with a 2.125-inch diameter), which we think will best serve most people.

The teeth are super sharp. In our testing we found that the Santa Cruz Shredder model’s four-pointed teeth worked as well as or better than the diamond-shaped teeth in most grinders. The grinding plate and teeth are made of the same piece of aluminum, and the metal’s anodized finish has held up well to wear and tear. Less expensive models, by contrast, often have an unfinished grinding plate that won’t be as durable in the long term.

The holes in the grinding plate are of average size. They yield a medium-coarse grind that works equally well with most vaporizers, recipes, or pipes. If the teeth ever break, the company stands behind them with a lifetime warranty.

It’s a great value overall. If you’re set on a traditional grinder with teeth, the four-piece model is one the best-performing — and least-expensive — grinders we’ve tested.

Several sizes are available. Santa Cruz Shredder also sells larger and smaller options, as well as a three-piece variant with no screen for catching pollen.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

Like any grinder with teeth, the Santa Cruz Shredder model can get gummed up. This means you’ll likely need to clean it more often, with occasional deep cleans to optimize performance.

Only one plate (medium) is included. No plates with smaller or larger holes are available for this model.

Upgrade pick: Herb Ripper Classic 4-Piece

Upgrade pick

A stainless steel workhorse

Herb Ripper Classic 4-Piece

If you prefer a grinder with teeth and made entirely of stainless steel, this hefty model has embedded magnets that make its grinding motion extra smooth. It’s trickier to clean than our top pick, though.

$129 from The Ripper

The performance of the all-stainless grinders we’ve tested is unmatched — as are their prices. If you’re planning to invest in a grinder with ultra-sharp teeth and precision threading, one that you can expect to outlast almost any aluminum model, we recommend the Herb Ripper Classic 4-Piece.

This model’s fourth piece is a mesh screen to catch kief. The mesh screen is the second-best of its kind we’ve tested. You can skip that, and save $30, with the three-piece version, which is also 2 inches in diameter. (Larger, 2.5-inch-diameter versions are available for $50 more in each of the configurations.)

Both fine- and medium-grind plates are included. In contrast, our other picks each come with only one plate. The plates snap in easily, thanks to embedded magnets, and sit securely alongside the mesh kief filter, with filter holes slightly wider than those of our top pick, the Flower Mill model. That filter acts as the floor of the collection chamber, and its sloped sides help the ground product gather in a smaller surface area, so it’s easier for you to withdraw smaller portions via pinching (if you don’t plan to dump all of the ground product into, say, a jar).

The grinding process is exceptionally smooth. Compared with most grinders — our top pick aside — the steel Classic 4-Piece, with its ultra-smooth grinding motion, was better at consistently producing uniformly ground cannabis, even with some of the stickiest buds we tried. This model also feels exceptionally sturdy, and it has held up very well, as expected, over more than a year of use.

Herb Ripper covers its grinders with a lifetime warranty.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

The teeth need cleaning. As with the Santa Cruz Shredder model and any other grinder with teeth, the protrusions in this grinder can become gunked up with cannabis residue. Still, cleaning is fairly simple.

How to clean a cannabis grinder

Cleaning a cannabis grinder is relatively straightforward. However, depending on the amount of sap-like resin buildup in the tool (a natural consequence of grinding cannabis flowers), the task can take a fair bit of time and effort. Regular cleaning, such as performing a quick swipe of the teeth and threads after a few uses, reduces the need for deep-cleaning substantial buildup.

You can clean aluminum-body grinders with mild soap and water and spot-treat them with isopropyl alcohol. (It’s fine, however, to soak the stainless steel screens in alcohol as needed.) You should maintain an all-stainless grinder, like the Herb Ripper model, in much the way you would any other stainless steel tool: Never use harsh scouring powders or anything to damage the finish, and avoid air-drying it (try a microfiber cloth instead). And if it needs a little polish, buff a very thin layer of olive oil onto its surface. Santa Cruz Shredder recommends using isopropyl alcohol and a cotton swab to clean its aluminum grinder’s teeth and a cloth dipped in alcohol to clean the threading. When you’re cleaning any grinder, be sure to let all of the pieces dry fully before reassembling it and using it.

For removing resin that can accumulate on grinder teeth, screens, or seams, consider using a small brush or scraper tool; Santa Cruz Shredder sells a dedicated scraper tool for removing ultra-fine material from collection chambers. Kannastör suggests putting grinder components in the freezer for 10 to 15 minutes “to reduce the stickiness of any residue,” making it easier to remove.

Other cannabis grinders worth considering

If you want an especially versatile grinder: For years we recommended the Kannastör Gr8tr Jar Body Grinder. It remains a great grinder, but it’s frequently unavailable. Unique to the Gr8tr, which has an aluminum body and stainless steel screens, is a second storage compartment in the lid. In every other grinder we tried, the collection chamber at the bottom is the only place you can store anything. But the free-spinning magnetic top piece of the Gr8tr unscrews to reveal an extra storage area that’s perfect for whole flowers, in addition to larger amounts of ground material to keep on hand. Plus, if you want something more compact when you’re on the go, the Gr8tr’s top and bottom pieces mate to create a slim storage puck. Medium- and fine-grind plates are both included. Kannastör covers the Gr8tr with a lifetime warranty.

The competition

The Beamer Acrylic Grinder and the SharpStone V2 4-Piece Hard Top Grinder both have plastic components, and in testing them, we immediately noticed that those pieces tended to attract more leafy bits than their all-metal counterparts. Considering the other high-quality options we had to choose from, this drawback was enough for us to rule out both grinders. The SharpStone grinder in particular is a popular model, but it became easily cross-threaded when we put it back together, and we found its grind smoothness and its material consistency to be just okay.

The Phoenician Pro 4-Piece Medium is easy to use and offers gentle grinding. The top attaches with inlaid magnets for a secure fit. In our testing, this model made consistently fluffy grinds. Our panel testers preferred the Santa Cruz Shredder model to this grinder but found the experience of using them similar. Additional screens and grinding plates are available for a fee. Unique to the (somewhat aggressively) Large model is a nook to stash rolling papers, as well as a built-in ashtray.

In our testing, the Chromium Crusher 2.5-Inch 4-Piece model’s teeth took a little longer to finish grinding than those of other models in the same price range. The sharp corners in the collection plate, coupled with the textured interior of the bottom piece, made this grinder harder for us to empty completely without flipping it over and tapping out a mess.

The Cali Crusher Homegrown Standard has a few unusual features that we appreciated. Instead of full threading — which requires you to unscrew the lower pieces of the grinder — the Cali Crusher model has a quarter-turn twist-lock system that is faster to use than traditional threading but just as secure. In place of diamond-shaped teeth, the radial blades inside did a nice job of evenly breaking up our bud without getting stuck. But we concluded that our top pick is a better value overall.

Grinders for Life’s Stainless Steel Brilliant Cut Grinder uses just three pieces of hardware to make grinding up a whole lot of flower a cinch. The result is a refined, super-fine grind. Thanks to this model’s secure, strong grip, the grinder does much of the work, sparing your hands and wrists. But unlike our upgrade pick, the Herb Ripper Classic 4-Piece, this similarly pricey all-stainless device doesn’t have a kief catcher. Additionally, at this writing, Grinders for Life models take four or more weeks to ship.

Lift Innovations’s aluminum three- and four-piece grinders are beloved by buyers, as evidenced in their reviews, but they’re frequently sold out.

Stock issues prevented us from testing the Mendo Mulcher 3" 4-Piece.

Despite the Space Case Medium 4-Piece Grinder’s solid performance (and the high praise that enthusiasts give the company’s models), we didn’t find any standout features to justify its higher price in comparison with our picks. In our testing, the Space Case grinder produced a grind that was as smooth, consistent, and fine as the results from our top pick. Yet the corners of the screen and collection trays were relatively sharp angles that were hard for us to clear with our fingers.

Mark Smirniotis contributed reporting. This article was edited by Tracy Vence and Kalee Thompson.

Meet your guide

Beca Grimm

What I Cover

Beca Grimm is a culture writer and editor based in Southwest Atlanta.

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