5 Piece Grinders

About 5 Piece Grinders

Grinders have been a staple for many cannabis consumers because of the benefits they provide those who are into consuming dried herbs and botanical plant matter. Be it the leaves or the actual flowers, a grinder can help cut your herbs into smaller pieces that can easily be loaded to your vaporizer chamber, rolled into a spliff, or packed into your pipe. Actually, the benefits of using a grinder go beyond and as far as having to cut the herbs in smaller pieces. Some grinders are specially designed and engineered to do more.

Enter 5-piece grinders.

5-piece grinders are weed grinders that apart from cutting the herbs into smaller portions also allow the pollen in the herbs to be filtered and collected to be saved for later use. A 5-piece grinder is a grinder that helps you maximize the yield of your select botanicals by letting you save and separate as much material from it as possible.

Wait. Hold up a minute. I know what you’re thinking. Can’t 4-piece weed grinders do exactly just that?

That’s right. The 4-piece variety allows the weed to be ground to your preferred consistency and at the same time collect the pollen from the flowers but the extra compartment of the 5-piece grinder helps filter the herbs even better.

To help us differentiate a 4-piece between a 5-piece grinder, here’s a quick look between the two.

4-Piece Grinders

A 4-pice grinder consists of a cap, the main compartment that holds and grinds the herbs, a pollen catcher, and a final compartment that catches and collects the pollen. The basic 4-piece grinder allows you to do a lot in just a small compact tool. 4-piece grinders are often coveted by consumers because of their ability to grind the herbs and separate the pollens effectively.

5-Piece Grinders

On the other hand, you have your 5-piece grinders, a 5-piece grinder often comes with an additional compartment that offers additional purposes. Some 5-piece grinders use the fifth compartment to carry additional herbs and act as a storage compartment while others actually use them to add another layer of the screen for further sifting and screening of the pollen.

5-piece grinders are a unique addition to any consumer’s arsenal as it offers the kind of utility from just any kind of tool.

We, at VapeActive, carry a wide range of cannabis grinders from small two-piece weed grinders to full-sized 5-piece weed grinders. We also carry non-stick grinders to grinders with hand cranks, you name it we have it. VapeActive is the number one online store to shop whether it’s vaporizers or even affordable and premium dry herb grinders. We have everything to help you get the best out of every session. We’re backed by a team that constantly searches the web for the best grinders on the market so we can deliver the best products to our customers. It has always been our goal as a company to provide the best products paired with the easiest and most convenient shopping experience. So, keep it here at VapeActive for the best vaporizers and herb grinders.

While we’re at it, here are a few advantages of using a weed grinder and its 5-piece variety.

Helps Vaporize or Smoke the Weed Evenly

Don’t you just hate it when you light up your pipe or fire up your vaporizer and get uneven results? Flowers are charred and singed from the outside but is still fresh and green in the inside. A grinder can help you achieve better results whether you’re using a vaporizer, a bong, or a pipe. Instead of cramping down nuggets of weed into your selected means of consumption, ground materials allow for better results by letting you cover more surface area, heat the herbs evenly, and pack more materials for more potent and flavorful results. Basically, a grinder can do magic to your daily sessions and improve your consumption and yield by tenfold.

Giving your botanicals the right amount of exposure and coverage allows you to get better results and using a grinder can do just about that. That said, a 5-piece grinder can offer more variability and functionality into your grinding. As we’ve briefly covered above, some grinders have additional storage compartments while others offer an additional screen to sift the herbs. Depending on your consumption method, you can use this to your advantage and basically improve your sessions depending on what you need.

Herb Preservation

Using a grinder actually has implications in faithfully preserving the overall qualities of your select dry herb strains. The traditional way of breaking weed is by hand and is still commonly practiced today. As many consumers still take buds and flowers by hand and it’s not at all a bad thing. However, if your goal is to maximize the experience and get everything that your select botanical strains have to offer, using a grinder to break the herbs into smaller and finer pieces allows you to get more. Here’s why. When you break your weed by hand, you get the pollen into your fingers and instead of having to use them in other applications.

Furthermore, when you use your hands to break the herbs, you’re not only losing the pollen, but the acids in the sweat of your hands (if you’ve got really sweaty hands) may damage the trichomes and the terpenes so the efficacy of the plant may be reduced instead of having to reap the full suite of benefits that your select botanical strains have to offer. Herb preservation is one of the more advantageous benefits of using grinders to help you manage your botanical strains.

Additional Utility

As we’ve briefly covered above, the use of grinders offers some kind of utility in terms of how we consume the herbs, and in most cases, the type of utility that these grinders play in our consumption method depends in the type of consumer we and depends on what are needs are in consuming cannabis. Basically, a grinder’s primary role is to grind your herbs and provide a receptacle or a vessel for containing and storing your herbs whether they be raw buds or flowers or ground up already. The use of weed grinders allows you to basically grind and carry or store weed. On that note consumers who find themselves always on-the-go will most likely utilize their grinders in a way that they use it to carry their herbs for when they are on-the-go. Many grinders on the market today have string magnets so that the components or the chambers do not break away from each other. They also have durable threaded connections so that the lock and the bond between modular parts are reinforced so when you actually put your herbs in the grinder and use it to carry your herbs and stash the grinder in your bag or in your pocket, it will keep it in there and not let it spill out acting as a solid container for keeping the herbs in a durable and reliable container.

For those who are always at home or those who are consuming cannabis either on a medical standpoint or a recreational standpoint can use the grinder to make the most out of their materials having more than enough time to actually play around the herbs and put the collected pollen to good use. One way to use it is to put it in a pollen press and store the pollen for later use. Others may use them immediately as a sprinkle to top bowls and spliffs, use the pollen to make a potent morning drink, make e-liquids, and lastly for edibles.

The way grinders are utilized depends on the needs of consumers and it makes weed grinders a very versatile tool for consuming herbs. On that note, we at, VapeActive, understand that different consumers use grinders differently and because of that, we’ve decided to carry a wide range of herb grinders that would suit the needs of a wide range of consumers.

How to Use a 5-Piece Grinder

Now that we’ve discussed some of the benefits of using a grinder, let’s dive into something more specific, how to use a 5-piece grinder. It's true that 5-piece grinders are no different from other herb grinders in a way that they grind your herbs but because of the variations of 5-piece grinders, the way it’s used may vary. Here are some common ways of how you can use a 5-piece grinder.

One of the most common designs of a 5-piece grinder is having two screens and the best way to use a 5-piece grinder is when you’re grinding a lot of herbs. This is beneficial when you’re grinding herbs especially if you’re a heavy consumer. The more herbs you grind the more pollen falls on the screen and the more of it is sifted and the more of it is collected and the more of it can be put to use.

For argument's sake, we’ll use the SharpStone 5-piece grinder that has two screens to filter your herbs.

First, grab your weed like you normally would. Open the first place of the grinder and place the weed in it. Pack a good-sized nugget and replace the cap of the grinder. Make sure to seal the cap properly and gently twist the cap back and forth to grind the herbs. If you want a finer grind and get the teeth to really work the herbs before you have them fall off the holes, you can set the grinder upside down and wait for a few more turns to make sure you get a finer grind. You can then flip the grinder to let the loose leaves fall off. Give the grinder a few taps every now and then to shake off the pollen and because you’re using a grinder with two screens, you want to make sure that the right kind of pollen falls on the screens so you get to achieve the best results.

The reason behind it is that the first layer screens the pollen and, in most cases, even in some of the more expensive 4-piece grinders, you get pollen that has small plant particles in them and these types of pollen are not as effective and as potent as what we think them to be. The purpose of the second layer of screen is that it allows for finer sifting and allow for the more stringent separation of the smaller herb particles and makes for a more potent variety of pollen or kief. This means you get more substantial hits from the pollen that you make and that the ground herbs you’re consuming are cleaner and free from smaller plant particles. Moreover, if you’re consuming herbs that we're not purchased from a dispensary or the kind that have not been properly cared for by a professional budtender, you may get small bug particles that can affect the quality of the herbs. You can maximize the functionality of your 5-piece grinder by following these steps.

What’s the Point of a 5-Piece Grinder Anyway?

As we’ve mentioned above, a 5-piece grinder like the SharpStone 5-piece grinder offers an additional means of sifting and screening the herbs so you can get better production of kief or pollen which makes it a great way of enhancing the quality of your sessions. These pollens will otherwise be sticking to your fingers and will be lost instead of being used and consumed.

The point of a 5-piece grinder? The point is to get more functionality and in the case of the SharpStone 5-piece grinder, an additional screen allows you to gather more potent dust that you can use depending on your preference. Some consumers actually prefer smoking or vaporizing the ground material without the pollen as it reportedly makes or a cleaner effect. This is true and is important especially for medicating patients. While patients that have been prescribed medical cannabis have been using them to alleviate their medical condition, it can sometimes be the cause of allergic reaction which means that the use of cannabis and the actual plant matter as a means of medication can be harmful to them instead of helpful. Instead of helping them with their medical condition, consuming cannabis may actually be one of the reasons why their lives may even be in danger.

According to some studies, the pollen in cannabis buds has caused, on several occasions, symptoms of allergic rhinitis, asthma, and conjunctivitis. Moreover, smoke or pollen exposure has resulted in various conditions ranging from less serious ones like nasal congestion, sneezing, rhinitis, itchiness in the throat, wheezing, and coughing, to more pressing matters like conjunctival infection and severe difficulty of breathing. Using a 5-piece grinder as a means to sift the herbs and remove the finer pollen from the ground plant matter allows for cleaner production of herbs and if you could remember the tip we gave earlier (shaking the grinder a few times), will cause most of the pollen to fall off of the ground herbs and be sifted through the screen. In this case, you can help prevent allergic reactions from consuming the plant matter and enjoy the medicinal benefits of consuming cannabis.

Still, you can just brush off the pollen or just shake them off the bud of the flower, right?

While that can be true it’s also good to note that in some cases, skin exposure can also cause an allergic reaction to the pollen in the plant matter. Generalized reaction to allergic pollen in plants has been known to cause anything from pruritus or itching to periorbital angioedema or swelling of the skin. In worse cases, it can cause anaphylaxis, difficulty in breathing, and difficulty in speaking. That said, carefully handling the plant matter and using a 5-piece grinder to separate the flowers from the pollen that may cause allergic reactions to consumers with sub-par immune systems. On that note, because of the 5-piece grinder’s better sifting and screening ability, you can easily remove them and maybe share the pollen you've collected with a friend who is not allergic to it.

How Do Two Screens Filter The Pollen?

Won’t they just have the same effect and isn’t it just redundant? In the case of the SharpStone 5-piece grinder, the screens used to filter the pollen are of different measurements. For obvious reasons, the first screen is of a larger size while the second screen offers a smaller hole. This allows the sifting of the ground plant matter and the thorough separation of the herbs from the pollen. What it does is that the first screen to let finer pieces of the plant matter through. On the other hand, the smaller holes on the second screen allow only the finer particles through and do not allow plant matter to pass. What this does is that it helps segregate the parts of the ground weed that would otherwise be mixed together with not only pollen and plant trichomes but also dead bugs and other things that can affect the overall quality of your herbs.

The two screens allow for a two-part filtering process that creates a finer production of ground herbs and pollen. The thing about weed grinders with single screens is that part of what being sifted or let through are just smaller particles of the plant matter that have been ground up. This means that you are either putting a lot of ground-up herb in your pollen or you’re losing weed to the kief you’ve collected. Either way, if your purpose is to get the most out of your sessions, then getting a collected product of combined pollen and plant matter is not as effective. You’re basically fooling yourself and are only creating a placebo effect as you are in the belief that the pollen you collected using the grinder is potent when in fact it isn’t.

The size of the screen used to filter the herbs are measured by microns and 5-piece grinders like the SharpStone 5-piece grinder use screens with different micron sizes to make sure what the first screen lets through, the second one doesn’t. This two-part purification is an effective means of really getting to the stuff that matters whether you’re allergic to the pollen in the plant or if you’re just trying to get really stoned by gathering all the psychoactive components that the plant matter has to offer. Either way, a 5-piece grinder with two screens can do the trick. 

We, at VapeActive, understand the importance of separating these two components (the actual ground herbs and the pollen) for consumers who require them to be separated for different purposes. Whether you’re suffering from an allergic reaction but are opting for a more natural means of medication or a recreational consumer just saving up pollen for an upcoming occasion, the use of a 5-piece grinder can help you achieve the results you need. VapeActive is devoted to giving its customers the best products on the market. From vaporizers down to the herb grinders, we make sure that our team scours the internet for the best-rated products and we test them ourselves so we can vouch for their dependability and reliability. We're backed by a team of professional consumers who know exactly what they’re doing which includes knowing what to find ad what to look for in a dry herb grinder.

We're the internet’s best source for all things you need for smoking and vaporizing your select plant matter and we invest in products that can help you make a significant difference in your daily or occasional consumption. When shopping for vaporizers or weed grinders online, make sure you buy from the most trusted online vape shop. Buy only from VapeActive.

Now that you know what difference 5-piece grinders can make, let’s talk specifics about some of the grinders that we carry. We’ve mentioned the SharpStone 5-piece grinder for a while now but we’ve yet to reveal its features. Here’s what you can expect from using a 5-piece grinder like the SharpStone 5-piece grinder.

Superior Build Quality

SharpStone grinders are just one of the best weed grinders on the market today. They are exceptional not only because they offer a 5-piece variety but also because they make their weed grinders with some of the best raw materials today’s industry has to offer. The entirety of the body of the SharpStone 5-piece grinder is made out of aircraft-grade aluminum which is one of the best aluminum materials you can find commercially. Aircraft-grade aluminum is resistant to corrosion, is lighter, and is more durable compared to other types of metal that have been used on weed grinders previously. This only means that an herb grinder made out of aircraft-grade aluminum boasts better durability and is less susceptible to weakening and chemical damage due to rust which will not only damage the structural integrity of the grinder but will potentially affect the overall quality of the herbs. In some cases, the ground botanicals tend to smell and taste like metal primarily because of the small corroded metals on the ground weed.

By using a higher-quality raw material, the SharpStone 5-piece grinder and other weed grinders that use the same quality of steel or metal prevent these kinds of problems. Also, because they’re more durable, they’re less susceptible to chafing and abrasion. When two metals come into close contact with each other, the results can damage the surface of the metal and cause smaller shards or slivers of the said metal to fall off in the ground product. Investing in a high-quality product like this can elevate your sessions and get you better results in the process.

A Premium Finish

Each of these grinders is given a premium finish on top of the high-grade aerospace quality aluminum used to manufacture these kinds of grinders. The SharpStone 5-piece grinder is given an anodized finish which gives the herb grinder a stronger surface that can resist the minor manifestation of wear and tear as well as a few minor dents which can keep the grinder looking as good as new even if you’ve had it for a long time.

Anodization works by using the process of electrolytic passivation which increases the surface’s ability to resist wear and corrosion. This process and finish also prevent the galling of the threaded connection between the metals as it effectively reduces the amount of and eve eliminates the falling off of small metal particles that can make its way to the ground herbs. On that note, anodized aluminum can be harder and better than regular aluminum. Let alone an anodized aircraft-grade aluminum can make for a unique piece that can stand the test of time. They are still subject to damage but can outlive other grinders that have not been treated such a premium finish. If you’re looking for an herb grinder that won’t give out on you easily, make sure to look for one that has a premium anodized finish.

Strong Magnetic Connection

Yes, even grinders use magnets to. These magnets allow for a better seal of the grinder’s top lid and the bottom half so you can easily just twist the grinder without worrying that the two grinding sections will fall off. Like all of the parts used in the grinder, SharpStone opted to outfit their 5-piece variety with the strongest magnet commercially available. They use rare-earth neodymium magnets that boast strength and reliability you won’t find anywhere else. These magnets were developed in partnership with Sumitomo Special Metals and General Motors and are the strongest magnet to be sold on the market. In fact, they are far stronger than the average magnet and are used in a wide range of applications.

The magnets act as a means to keep what’s inside, inside and outside, outside. What this means is that the herbs, the aroma, and the flavor are faithfully preserved by locking it on and it keeps bacterial and pathogens away by sealing off the grinder and preventing these microorganisms to enter. The strong magnets also prevent your precious ground material from spilling and ending up as waste.

Razor Sharp Cutting Blades

Another benefit of using a 5-piece grinder like the SharpStone 5-piece grinder is its ability to cut the herbs finely using its razor-sharp teeth. By outfitting the weed grinder with powerful cutting blades, you can grind and cut just about any herb at any consistency. You'll have no problem cutting and grinding herbs that are tough. Even those with soft stems in them, you can easily grind them to perfection. Wanting to consume herbs that are fresh and moist? No problem, this grinder’s sharp blades can easily cut through cannabis carrying a lot of moisture and can still produce decent results. Not only will you get to grind the herbs but you can do so with confidence and conveniently. Because of how sharp the blades are, you can easily cut through almost any type of herb or weed no matter how stubborn they are. You're basically using professional quality blades that can cut through any herb of any density and any consistency. And these blades are designed and engineered not to grow dull easily overtime. This means that you’re technically getting a grinder that can last you potentially a lifetime making it a lasting investment.

Two Stainless Steel Screens

Lastly, the benefit of using a 5-piece grinder is the use of two screens. We’ve been talking about the benefits of having two screens we really haven’t talked about the quality of the actual screens. The SharpStone 5-piece grinder uses stainless steel screens that allow for the herbs to be sifted and at the same time enjoy a proper screen that does not rust or corrode as easily as other metals. This means that you grind up as much herb as you want and not worry about the screen developing a wide variety of problems especially since we've been talking about grinding up moist weed. The moisture in the herbs can contribute to corrosion from the inside and the thin screens are susceptible to rust and any kind of damage that could potentially affect the integrity of the grinder.

By using stainless steel screens, they can easily filter the herbs and keep them clean. Maintenance is also made easier because of these screens.