We’ve covered the best portable vaporizers for a few years. We’ve now done the same for grinders, looking at best-selling grinders and owner reviews across multiple retailers, reading enthusiast feedback on forums, and even sitting through video reviews on YouTube. We’ve also gotten input from Bud at The Vape Critic and Buzz Danklin at VaporizerWizard.com. (Both reviewers use pen names, and both sites include affiliate links for some products that the reviewers recommend, as detailed in The Vape Critic’s disclosure page and VaporizerWizard.com’s disclosure page.) Bud and Buzz provided valuable insights into how to get the most from any grinder.

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. After all, 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 really enjoy an even bowl burn, the investment in a high-end cannabis grinder doesn’t seem like a stretch and pays off in 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.

We considered models from the top brands recommended by expert and amateur reviewers alike. We focused on “medium” grinders in the 2-inch-diameter range—large enough to grind herbs for multiple sessions but not so big that they took up too much space—and we looked for three- and four-piece models that allowed 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.

On Amazon, best-selling and top-rated grinders that fit our initial criteria start at just $10, but when you’re shopping online, seeing the difference between inexpensive grinders and models that cost more than $100 can be difficult. Glossing over claims about sharper teeth or better materials when you’re staring at pictures is easy, but the difference jumps out at you when you twist a quality grinder in your hands, as it threads together with ease and glides and grinds more smoothly.

For our latest round, we tested 16 grinders that ranged in price from $6 to $130 to determine the best value for most people based on four main criteria:

• 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 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 VaporizerWizard.com prefers to get a finer grind for conduction vaporizers like our pick from Pax or something a little coarser that lets air through for convection vaporizers like the Firefly 2+. A slightly coarser grind is more flexible, though. To produce 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 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 your material fall through the holes between the teeth and into the collection chamber. It’s no fun to sit around picking tiny leafy chunks out 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, in 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, having a company that will stand behind it is also nice, so we noted the warranty and support options from each company, too.

If you would appreciate extra, dedicated storage in your grinder, the option to change the coarseness of your grind, and a mesh screen for collecting kief, the Kannastör Gr8tr Jar Body Grinder is worth the slightly higher price to prepare your cannabis. The Gr8tr’s fine, fluffy results set it apart from any other sub-$100 grinder we tried.

The two included grinding plates are a standout feature. The fine-grind plate has nearly 80 holes that are smaller than the Santa Cruz Shredder model’s 15 holes. Buzz from VaporizerWizard.com told us that when he wants to maximize the vapor output on a conduction vaporizer, he likes the finer grind of the Magic Flight Finishing Grinder. Though we didn’t consider the Magic Flight grinder because it’s available only in a two-piece design, the holes on the Gr8tr are similarly sized.

If you don’t want such a fine grind, or if you dislike seeing large bits and stems get stuck in the smaller holes, you can quickly unscrew the grinding plate and replace it with the included coarser-grind plate. (You can screw the spare plate into the top of the grinder for storage, or you can store it in a safe spot elsewhere if you prefer to keep the grinder a bit more svelte.) That extra plate has holes closer in size to those of most other grinders, and it’s better for preparing material to use in convection-based vaporizers that benefit from the extra airflow of more coarsely ground cannabis.

The Gr8tr has another unique feature: a second storage compartment in the lid. In every other grinder we tried, the only place to keep anything is in the collection chamber at the bottom. But the free-spinning magnetic top piece of the Gr8tr unscrews to reveal an extra storage area that’s perfect for whole flowers. Plus, if you want something more compact on the go, the Gr8tr’s top and bottom pieces mate to create a slim storage puck.

Kannastör covers the Gr8tr with a lifetime warranty and email support.

The all-aluminum Santa Cruz Shredder Medium 3-Piece Shredder has more than two dozen uniquely shaped teeth that help it smoothly cut through dense flowers, dropping ground material with an even consistency into an ample collection chamber.

Santa Cruz Shredder grinders have a tooth shape that differs from that of every other grinder we’ve evaluated: In our testing we found that its four-pointed teeth worked as well as or better than the diamond-shaped teeth in most grinders. The teeth easily shredded each sample we tried, and the top grinding plate on this model rotated so easily it almost felt like it was floating. 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 in our long-term testing of this grinder. Less expensive models, in contrast, often have an unfinished grinding plate that won’t be as durable in the long term. The holes in this model’s grinding plate are an average size, and they yield a medium-coarse grind that works equally well with most vaporizers, recipes, or pipes.

Each time we took this Santa Cruz Shredder grinder apart and screwed it back together, the threads mated smoothly and never bound up like those of some competitors. If you want to separate your kief, the four-piece model includes a screen and catcher.

With the three-piece version, which doesn’t have a pollen screen, everything falls into the massive collection chamber. At nearly an inch deep, the dish is two to three times deeper than the collection chambers on other models we’ve looked at; the corners and sides are nicely rounded, letting you easily pinch out what you need. The extra capacity of the medium three-piece version stands out in a crowd. (The larger, four-piece Santa Cruz Shredder model—which includes a kief catcher—doesn’t have a proportionally larger collection chamber.)

Buzz at VaporizerWizard.com had high praise for this grinder, too. “I use my Santa Cruz Shredder more than the rest of my grinders put together, and if I could only have one grinder I would definitely go with a Santa Cruz Shredder,” he wrote in an email interview.

Santa Cruz Shredder models are highly regarded by enthusiasts for their quality. But if the teeth ever break, the company stands behind them with a lifetime warranty.

The performance of the all-stainless steel 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 that you can expect to outlast almost any aluminum model, we recommend Herb Ripper’s The Ripper XL Herb Grinder.

Like the Santa Cruz Shredder model we like, the Ripper XL comes in three- and four-piece options. The fourth piece in the latter is a mesh screen to catch kief—and it’s the best of its kind we’ve tested. Thanks to embedded magnets, the included fine- and medium-grind plates snap in easily and securely alongside the mesh kief filter. The mesh kief filter acts as the floor of the collection chamber, and its sloped sides help the ground product gather in a smaller surface area, making it 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).

Compared with anodized-aluminum grinders, including our other picks, in our tests the steel Ripper XL produced consistently uniform ground flower with an ultra-smooth grinding motion, even with some of the stickiest cannabis we tried. It also felt exceptionally sturdy.

Herb Ripper covers its grinders with a lifetime warranty.

Cleaning a cannabis grinder is relatively straightforward, but 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 every few uses—reduces the need for deep-cleaning substantial buildup.

A representative of Kannastör said to use only water and mild soap on its grinders, since alcohol “can cause cosmetic damage.” (It’s fine, however, to soak the stainless steel screens in isopropyl alcohol as needed.) Santa Cruz Shredder recommends using an isopropyl alcohol soak and a cotton swab to clean the grinder’s teeth and a cloth dipped in alcohol to clean the threading. You should maintain an all-stainless grinder like Herb Ripper’s model in much the way you would any other stainless steel appliance: Never use harsh scouring powders or anything to damage the finish, 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. When you’re cleaning any grinder, be sure to let all 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.

The Beamer Acrylic Grinder and 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 quality options we had to choose from, this drawback was enough for us to rule them out. 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.

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 evenly breaking up our bud without getting stuck. But we concluded that the customizable Kannastör Gr8tr Jar Body Grinder 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, Herb Ripper’s The Ripper XL Herb Grinder, this similarly pricey all-stainless device doesn’t have a kief catcher. Additionally, at this writing, Grinders for Life grinders take five or more weeks to ship.

Lift Innovations’s aluminum three-piece and four-piece grinders are beloved by vaporizer users, but they lack the extra storage and modular grinding plates that set the Gr8tr Jar Body Grinder apart. They’re also frequently sold out.

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 this grinder’s increased price in comparison with the Gr8tr Jar Body Grinder. In our testing, the Space Case grinder produced a grind that was as smooth, consistent, and fine as the results from our top pick, but 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 Annemarie Conte.