Why use a grinder? For starters, self-respect. You want to make the most out of your flower, don’t you?

Grinders are more practical than prying your cannabis apart with your fingers. It’ll save you time and frustration while avoiding sticky residue all over your fingers.

Grinders also create more evenly ground cannabis flower, which will translate into a more evenly rolled joint or a more efficient bong or pipe hit.

While you can easily buy a grinder at your local head shop or dispensary, sometimes you find yourself in a real pinch. Late hours, no extra cash, or not feeling an errand run can leave you searching for DIY grinder options. We’re happy to report that learning how to make a grinder at home isn’t all that challenging. Plus, you likely already have the materials needed for a make shift grinder in your home.

So, without further ado, here’s our list of DIY herb grinder options when you don’t have the real one available.

Ah, you thought this was just for cheese. No, no.

The perfect homemade grinder can simply be your inconspicuous cheese grater. There are even cannabis brands that sell credit-card style graters for quick and easy grinding. So, it’s definitely an acceptable method that’s effective.

The steps are simple:

Step 1: Pick up your cheese grater

Step 2: Grab a nug of cannabis flower, and pretend it’s cheese you want to grate

That’s right—just run your nug over the cheese grater like you would a block of parmesan cheese over a steaming plate of gnocchi. This will result in a finely ground cannabis flower.

Just be careful not to hurt your fingertips. The effectiveness of this technique will depend on the size of your nug and how dry it is. It’s best used with dense and bouncy nugs, as dryer herbs may result in loose flakes.

This may be your best option if you don’t have a grinder. In case you haven’t noticed, a blender and coffee grinder are good at grinding. Turns out, they make excellent weed grinders.

Ensure you thoroughly clean your blender or coffee grinder before using them to chop up your cannabis. Otherwise, you may end up smoking coffee grounds or the remnants of whatever you made in your blender last.

After your blender or coffee grinder is washed, thoroughly dry it. If you don’t, you’ll end up with a mess of sticky and wet cannabis flakes caked onto the inside of your coffee grinder or blender.

Simply toss your cannabis flower inside and let it rip. You’ll only need to grind or blend your cannabis for a few seconds. Blend your cannabis for too long, and it will turn into a dust-like consistency, which is not optimal for rolling joints, and will easily fall through the hole of your bowl piece.

After just a few seconds, check to see if the consistency of your cannabis flower is how you like it. If it’s still too chunky, continue to grind/blend it. If it’s a good consistency, take it out and smoke it!

Many cannabis consumers begin their journey into the world of cannabis grinding and smoking by chopping their herb with scissors.

However, it’s a little more complex than just snipping your herb carelessly. We’ve included a step-by-step rundown on how to grind your herb using the proper scissor technique.

Step 1: Pick up a nug of cannabis flower with your forefinger and thumb.

Step 2: With your other hand, open the scissors so both blades are positioned to cut the nug in your fingertips in half.

Step 3: Snip the scissors through the cannabis while applying slight pressure with your thumb and forefinger so that after you cut through the nug, you’re still holding the cannabis between your fingers.

Step 4: Open the blades up again and keep snipping through the cannabis nug while applying slight pressure with the thumb and forefinger, shifting the nug around slightly each time. Pieces of cannabis will fall from your fingers and onto the table.

Step 5: Once there’s barely any nug left in between your fingers, drop any remaining cannabis. Then, press down on the bits of cannabis flower on the table with your forefinger so that the little bits stick to your finger. Use this technique to collect the most amount of cannabis bits as you can with your forefinger, then press your thumb and forefinger together once more, and continue chopping it as you were doing when it was still a nug.

Step 6: Repeat this process until the cannabis is finely chopped.

So, you wanted to know how to make a homemade grinder. You might shake your head at the thought of a pill bottle and coin successfully shredding your cannabis.

But it’s true, you can bust up your bud by putting a nug in a pill bottle, putting a dime in after it, closing it, then violently shaking the bottle.

The dime will bounce around in the pill bottle, crashing against your cannabis nug, breaking off little pieces of flower until it’s been chopped up.

The thing is, if your cannabis flower is dry enough for this technique to work, it’s almost certainly dry enough to crumble it effortlessly with your thumb and forefinger. Therefore, this technique is best used for dryer herbs, but you can likely skip it by crumbling the nug with your hands.