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Large scale grinder?

BigJohnny

Member
I wasn't sure where to ask this since it's a bit of a generic question, but it's related to extractions so I thought here might be best.

Let's say you had an incomprehensible amount of yard waste that needs to be ground/chopped into a fine dust. Is there a device, similar to a food processor, that could shred up a large amount of material at one time?

I know leaf shredders exist and would probably do the job, except that they are extremely loud devices so they couldn't be run inside, and they make a ridiculously prohibitive amount of dust.

I was considering a meat grinder, but a larger model (Hobart 4146) is prohibitively expensive and may not grind plant material properly.
Also toying with the idea of a paper shredder but scale becomes an issue with that, and it may not grind the material into dust like I want.

Has anyone else had to reduce a large amount of plant material into a finely ground powder before?
 

MrBungle

Active member
just get a second hand food processor on craigslist or at a goodwill if you are lucky...the largest hand grinder I've seen is about 4-5 inches in diameter.. any bigger and we would prolly need a strap wrench to turn it
 

blastfrompast

Active member
Veteran
buddy welded a bracket to fit a lawnmower essentially over a 50 gal drum....he cut a hole in the top and would feed straw thru to chop it up for doing fungi staw logs....

It wouldn't do a find dust tho.....food processor would be your best bet I think.... Perhaps a restaurant supply store has and industrial sized one for under a grand...but i doubt it...
 

BigJohnny

Member
just get a second hand food processor on craigslist or at a goodwill if you are lucky...the largest hand grinder I've seen is about 4-5 inches in diameter.. any bigger and we would prolly need a strap wrench to turn it

Ive seen coffee grinders used, not used one myself though...

buddy welded a bracket to fit a lawnmower essentially over a 50 gal drum....he cut a hole in the top and would feed straw thru to chop it up for doing fungi staw logs....

It wouldn't do a find dust tho.....food processor would be your best bet I think.... Perhaps a restaurant supply store has and industrial sized one for under a grand...but i doubt it...

I use a rotocoupe, it works great and is really quick.

I really appreciate the responses, and I think a modded lawnmower might do the trick for me, but you guys are all thinking far too small scale.
A modded lawn mower might be a bit on the heavy side to pick up and dump out, but that'll fuel some ideas for sure.....so that's one route I might take.

I have a 12 cup food processor right now. it takes me 30 mins to grind up 4lbs, I typically run through 8 lbs, so that's an hour of boring wasted time.

I'd like to try and get 8lbs at least busted up into dust in one shot. Or some kind of continuous feed system like a meat grinder on crack. or a leaf shredder but not so damn loud and dusty.

Robocoupe's are fkn great, I used to use one when I was a cook, but again, it's still not enough volume.
 

BigJohnny

Member
using a food processor has yielded excellent results, and consistently squeezed an extea 1-2% out of every run..... they're just too small for my purposes.

a 5 gallon bucket sized food processor would probably be closer to what I need.
 

Gray Wolf

A Posse ad Esse. From Possibility to realization.
Mentor
ICMag Donor
Veteran
Nothing I've found will beat a hammer mill for reducing cannabis plants, including the stems, but they aren't quiet to operate. We broke about ever grinder known to man trying to reduce stems, before settling on a hammer mill.
 

VonBudí

ヾ(⌐■_■)ノ
Veteran
theres a tv show called high profits, where they had to shred aload of plants because of regs, dont know which episode its shown in but go to

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/04/15/living/high-profits-breckenridge-cannabis-club-intro/

under the video theres a link to other vids with once called "shredding $1 million worth of weed", it doesnt say what brand it is or if its reduced to dust,but being used indoors anyway, but maybe if you watch the full episode there might be a better shot, at a guess it looks like this one

http://www.sears.com/yard-force-yf8...p-07171951000P?prdNo=5&blockNo=5&blockType=G5

s-l1000.jpg


different colours but look the same
 

Gray Wolf

A Posse ad Esse. From Possibility to realization.
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A lawn shredder was our second most successful method, but required regular tear down and cleaning, as the fibers from the stems soon bound them up.

Here is the hammer mill on the left being tended and the lawn shredder on the right unattended.
 

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personally ive found that manipulating the material with any mechanical devise just leads to losses of resin to the machinery. All material goes into my closed loop as unadulterated as possible. Ive found loading material with A LOT of tamping pressure gives me the best yields. i literally use all my body weight when loading a tamisium.
 

Gray Wolf

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personally ive found that manipulating the material with any mechanical devise just leads to losses of resin to the machinery. All material goes into my closed loop as unadulterated as possible. Ive found loading material with A LOT of tamping pressure gives me the best yields. i literally use all my body weight when loading a tamisium.

And are you processing tons, or pounds.
 

BigJohnny

Member
theres a tv show called high profits, where they had to shred aload of plants because of regs, dont know which episode its shown in but go to

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/04/15/living/high-profits-breckenridge-cannabis-club-intro/

under the video theres a link to other vids with once called "shredding $1 million worth of weed", it doesnt say what brand it is or if its reduced to dust,but being used indoors anyway, but maybe if you watch the full episode there might be a better shot, at a guess it looks like this one

http://www.sears.com/yard-force-yf8...p-07171951000P?prdNo=5&blockNo=5&blockType=G5

View Image

different colours but look the same

Ya I think that's the same thing, I'm considering one of these as it may be my best option short of the lawnmower idea or hammer mill which is probably a bit too loud.

Theirs seems to be pretty quiet though, either that or it isn't a leaf shredder.

A lawn shredder was our second most successful method, but required regular tear down and cleaning, as the fibers from the stems soon bound them up.

Here is the hammer mill on the left being tended and the lawn shredder on the right unattended.

Doesn't that beat out a lot of chlorophyll ? or is it just for bone dry material?

http://www.jwce.com/ind/category/shred-grinders/

Maybe something industrial. Electric powered sounds like what your looking for. Sounds like money is no object haha.

I wouldn't go that far just yet. I'm in a bit of a transition period. Our old operation is closed down and got moved, and it's been a real shit show for the last couple of months and probably still will be until feb. or so.

I'm trying to spend as a little as possible on non-essential items, and waiting for a ton of replacement parts and shit.
 

Gray Wolf

A Posse ad Esse. From Possibility to realization.
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Ya I think that's the same thing, I'm considering one of these as it may be my best option short of the lawnmower idea or hammer mill which is probably a bit too loud.

Theirs seems to be pretty quiet though, either that or it isn't a leaf shredder.



Doesn't that beat out a lot of chlorophyll ? or is it just for bone dry material?



I wouldn't go that far just yet. I'm in a bit of a transition period. Our old operation is closed down and got moved, and it's been a real shit show for the last couple of months and probably still will be until feb. or so.

I'm trying to spend as a little as possible on non-essential items, and waiting for a ton of replacement parts and shit.

Both a shredder and a hammer mill are noisy when you feed material into them.

We used the hammer mill on dry material.
 
I use a steel window screen and rub it thru
it take a little bit but I sat down and worked 12 pounds while doing a run in my cls it took less then an hour to do the bulk into sifted product ready to go into your tubes ...I used a gallon pitcher and load 750 grams into 900 gram tube ...it works out great for me and I have another 50 pound of trim to run
 

FishmanK

Member
Dry Ice?

Dry Ice?

I have seen stems and flowers and leaves reduced to fine material in moments when making dry-ice kief...

putting your material into a 5 to 10 gallon container, adding 3 to 5 lbs of dry ice and letting it all freeze for a few minutes should allow you to then break it down with only some minimal agitation...
 
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