Hello nexus,

I need a method of grinding my bark to powder (or very small) without the aid of a coffee grinder or such. Any solution/workaround would be greatly appreciated,

Thank you

can you tare it into strips or shred it like crispy duck?

They are big chunks of bark, about and inch thick. What would I use to shred it?

Could you smash them up with a hammer in a bag to weaken the fibres then just shred by hand?

Honestly I've never done this without an electric grinder

Why can't you spend twelve bucks and get a cheap coffee grinder? There is no easy workaround to get the bark as fine as it needs to be to do an efficient extraction.

Can you use a blender? The guide I follow says to a blender, and doesn't even mention a coffee grinder, although I use a coffee grinder myself.

I've never tried without a grinder.
If you don't own one you could do it at a friends house.

A pestle and mortar may work, but not too effectively.
you could also try a hammer and a bag, but make sure the bag doesn't leak, and it may take a while.

I'd be very cautious about using a blender especially if it's got any plastic componenets. You don't want tiny fragemnts of plastic in the mix thats for sure.

Well I wish to do the extraction this weekend as it is the only free available time for me. Not sure as to where I could buy a coffee grinder?

*EDIT Went to four separate shops and they were all over $100!

Well if you can't get it in time, just try to strip it all as fine as you can then do some long acidic soak in a pan until no more colour comes out of them. Hopefully the heat and the moisture should break down the plant matter, especially if its a little acidic.

You may need a fair bit of liquid to get all the goodies out this way, so I'd just keep 2 pans on the go. 1 For the hot soak and the other as a collection pot for reducing as you go.

I don't think an STB is very feasible like this though.

Are you kidding?
http://www.amazon.com/gp...38631&pf_rd_i=507846
Is your neighborhood that overpriced?
Do it right or don't do it, because you're not going to be able to grind it fine enough by hand - especially if you're not even willing to put any effort into figuring out how to buy a twelve buck coffee grinder.
Even with a grinder, you're going to have to snip the bark into small pieces with tin snips or wire cutters.
Don't waste plant material that may be criminalized one day.
Post your results.

My country is remote (ish), anyways i solved the problem, I'm going to borrow a friends or buy one second hand. Results and full report next week

I have another quick question for you kind people: Is distilled water absolutely necessary for a STB (Nomanesque)? What would happen if water from a fresh spring were to be used instead?

Thank you

EDIT Silly me, dug around the forums a bit more and found an answer for my question

"Never used DH2O - I highly doubt there is much difference unless your tap water is really filthy.' - noman

Best method for grinding bark I've found blenders to work much better though any old one will do..

speeds: INFINITE
i lold.
What many people do is throw it in the freezer, thaw it, mash it up, freezer, thaw it, mash it up to get it pretty bare, then an acid cook should get out a good amount of goodies

A cheap and effective way that SWIM read about on the nexus a while back was to use a blender (preferably a cheap one), unscrew the the blade assembly from the pouring jar and replace by screwing the blade assembly onto a regular-mouth quart mason jar. SWIM's tried this and owes a debt of gratitude to whoever came up with it over here, because it's incredibly effective and expedient. There's no leakage of powder whatsoever, nothing seems to get wrapped around the blade and even if it did, the blade's easy to clear without even taking it off the jar, and it's incredibly fast (1kg in less than an hour!), but the real beauty is that SWIM doesn't even need to handle or fuss with the pulverized bark; the jars used can double as reaction vessels for acidifying or basifying. SWIM will never use a coffee grinder again.

SWIM does have to spend a considerable amount of time breaking the bark up by hand, but there's really no way around that, unless one uses a mulcher.



Although probably not necessary, using d-H2O is generally a good habit to get into. It's incredibly cheap, and SWIM has many uses for the HDPE jugs it comes in.

Ack, I hate grinding mimosa...my hands are purple at the end and usually bleeding a bit.

I use two sets of pliers and garden clipers to break them up into small chunks/strips.

Once it is in managable pieces off to the blender we go. Grind small amounts at time unless you have one hell of a good blender, otherwise you will burn out the motor. Repeat until done.

It's hard to get it all powdered. Some of it will remain stringy, but don't worry about it too much. A good cook in the crock pot will get out all of the spice, stringy stuff and all.

Interesting, any photos amor?

Yeah, this is seriously the only way SWIM could imagine doing this anymore.

Here ya go.

while that is a doosey of an invention, SWIM hates grinding bark (very difficult, time consuming) and finds the preground veriety to be of higher quality (less lumps/strands) and very cheap indeed.

SWIM doesn't like to order from outside of the country or paying extra to have it ground; plus the prepowdered is more susceptible to oxidization, or so I've heard. There's nothing difficult about this blender method, though breaking it up by hand to prepare it for the blender is a little tough...builds character, gives ya shaman-hands.