Santa Cruz Shredder – A Buyer’s Guide

We understand that purchases are an investment and nobody wants to be spending money on products that disappoint them. That’s why we founded LOUDcpt, to bring brands into South Africa that we could recommend. So this will be our first article aimed at talking you through each of the lead brands that we stock, providing you with deeper information about their products, why we stock them, and what you can expect if you buy them.

We’re starting with Santa Cruz Shredder, a company that is perhaps best known for their high-quality weed grinders, but more recently, they have started to branch out into more smoking accessories, retaining the quality standard that they set but also with a focus on creating hemp-based products, a venture that we’re a huge fan of.

What Makes Them Worth The Investment?

Some people have the idea that all grinders are the same and that every aluminium grinder is on par with each other. This is of course a misconception, and the grade of aluminium plays a role in the quality of the metal. Santa Cruz Shredders utilize medical-grade aluminium that isn’t dyed or painted, but rather anodized. Anodization is the process of colouring metals through a chemical reaction, which changes the colour of the metal itself. The benefit to this is that you won’t have small chips of paint in your herb over time – something that can be found in some cheap grinders. In addition, the grinders are also cleaned with a unique ultra-sonic medical-grade cleansing approach to ensure a product that is free from manufacturing residue or debris, down to a microscopic level.

When one handles a Santa Cruz Shredder, the quality speaks for itself. They are quite heavy and the design is one that provides an easy grind from start to finish. The threading used between the chambers is extremely well-designed and screws in and out without any problems or noises. The magnets used in the Santa Cruz Shredder grinders are a lot stronger than many other grinders, ensuring that the top chamber remains in place when grinding and also making travel with the grinder easier.

If you look past the practicality aspects and get to brass taxes, the Santa Cruz Shredder’s functionality is where it truly offers its best results. Santa Cruz Shredder’s tooth system is specifically designed for the easiest, cleanest grinding to provide you with fluffy herb that isn’t crushed, but rather cut. One of the biggest problems of cheap grinders is that they are developed by non-smokers in China and focus more on trying to emulate and adjust existing designs without much thought in R&D. The result is a product that will often just mush your flower in the chamber, rather than cutting it. We prefer the preservation of trichomes that the Santa Cruz Shredder offers.

A more budget-friendly alternative is the fully hemp-based Santa Cruz hemp grinders which don’t bring quite the same levels of sophistication to the grinding process, but they have still become very popular and far surpass the types of grinding experiences you’d find with a traditional plastic grinder.

Why We Stock Them

Long before LOUDcpt, we had been fans of the Santa Cruz Shredder. We had been using one ourselves for several years and the experience was just the best we’ve had from any of the grinders that we’ve used. While Santa Cruz Shredder had already been available in the country, there were often stock issues with existing retailers and extremely limited colour variations. We wanted to change that by bringing a wider variety of Santa Cruz Shredder products, more colours and more sizes.

Santa Cruz Shredder has widely been considered one of the best weed grinders available internationally, and while it’s a bit of a contentious question to ask someone who their favourite grinder brand is. Santa Cruz Shredder is one of the most brought-up answers among American smokers, and we hope to get our fellow South Africans to experience that same quality and judge for themselves.

Santa Cruz Shredder Grinder Sizing

If you’re wondering what sized Santa Cruz Shredder you need, do note that the sizing for these grinders is quite different from others. The medium size is about equivalent to your regular herb grinder size, and what is typically sold as a large grinder. The small version is a bit smaller but still larger than traditional small grinders. On the other side, the large Santa Cruz Shredders are truly quite big! If you are looking to crush around 1.5 to 2 grams of flower, then the large is the best option. But for bong smokers, a small Santa Cruz Shredder would probably suffice. The medium size is still the most commonly used and practical of the three, especially if you tend to keep it on you when travelling.

The Santa Cruz Shredder Catalog

Below are some of the Santa Cruz Shredder products that we stock, including various grinder sizes and colours, including some of their hemp products.