345814 Sun Nov 26 18:31:10 -0800 2006 28 41 Cookware 0 2047888 I'd like to try to get the top off of my empty Trader Joe's salt mill. My McCormick pepper mill is also nearly empty. I'd like to try to reuse them with whole spices such as cardamom, cumin, etc. Is there a trick to getting the top off? Has anyone else tried this? Will it work? Sun Nov 26 18:31:11 -0800 2006 10357 Lgalen 1 2047894 Not sure about the McCormick's, but I refilled my TJ salt mill recently--I had to tap it on the counter a few times to dislodge the salt dust in the threads, but I was able to get the top off pretty easily. I didn't try other spices though, as I have some of that red salt from Hawaii I wanted to grind. Sun Nov 26 18:35:14 -0800 2006 2047888 21053 mizinformation 1 2305563 Definetly not easy. The collar that twists to grind the pepper has lip inside that sits over the over the bottle locking it on. I used a small screwdriver to pry it up a little over the lip. Then wrapping the collar in tape I took some channel lock pliers and pulled off the collar, not easy but it can be done. Then I took a sharp utility knife and cut a thin sliver of plastic of the inside lip. NowI have an inexpensive, reuseable grinder. Sun Feb 18 18:33:14 -0800 2007 2047888 75669 goziner 2 4176456 Thanks Goziner. Just used one small screwdriver to hold it apart and the second to go around the bottle. Viola! took a few seconds and after filling, snapped it right back on. I didn't cut anything off the inside since it was pretty easy and we probably won't need to refill for at least a year. Thanks for forging ahead and solving this question! Sat Nov 15 15:07:58 -0800 2008 2305563 240405 nhirsch 1 2305794 ----- My personal feelings are to use a $4 mortar and a pestle for all the odd spices and herbs. You will get more control of the crush consistency in that case. Better yet is creating yourself some blended crushes that really spices up a favorite dish. However one of my friends that insists on recycling those will drill a 7/16 inch hole in the bottom using a special glass bit. He can get small corks in the local craft stores or use adhesive circles (office stickers), for plugging up the hole. He has noted to me that after about 2 maybe 3 refills the unit is rather shot. ----- Sun Feb 18 20:31:35 -0800 2007 2047888 60276 RShea78 1 2308515 Hmm....McCormick I never could figure out and didn't really think it was worth trying to figure out given the cost, but one thing I found with the TJ's mills we got more recently (both salt and pepper) is that they have easy to remove tops (they just unscrew) and thus can be easily refilled. Did I just hit a good batch? This is a matching pair of sea salt 3.3oz and black pepper 1.8oz, clear tops as well as clear bottle, if you're looking for them in the store. I dunno if the design changed either before or after I bought them, but these were bought sometime in the last couple months. I don't remember how much they cost. It seems possible you could probably find an equivalent cheap grinder for the same few bucks you would spend on these. Or maybe not. I gather each of these was about 3 bucks, maybe a little more. They are somewhat larger than the McCormick grinders. Mon Feb 19 17:21:57 -0800 2007 2047888 40162 CrazyOne 1 2308928 Why continue buying cheap mills that are meant to be disposable? The grinders wear out quickly. Decent mills can be purchased for as little at $7 - $10. Better quality peppercorns and salt will cost far less from Penzey's or even at the supermarket, packaged without the gimmick. You'll have the nice, good quality ones for a long time and enjoy using them on your table. http://www.surlatable.com/product/bodum%26%23174-+peppino+salt+%26amp-+pepper+mill+set.do?search=basic&keyword=pepper+mill&sortby=shortdesc&asc=true&page=1 I hate buying things that don't last. Mon Feb 19 19:51:27 -0800 2007 2047888 32444 MakingSense 2 4500537 I bought a refillable clear vinyl pepper mill. I hate the way it grinds, too fine. I taped up the old disposable one and I'm using that. I feel like I wasted £4. Fri Mar 13 03:26:20 -0700 2009 2308928 180623 Soop 1 2311309 We don't keep anything on the table. The cat gets up there. ;-) Hey, some people go for quality, some go for cheap and want to really keep it cheap. Whatever. I'm ambivalent on this particular issue, but I happened to read the thread and happened to have the TJ's bottles in the cabinet. Better quality peppercorns and salt would be lost on some people anyway. For that matter, it looks like what the OP was after was a way to have a lot of cheap mills for different spices. At a few bucks, you can throw the salt out and still have a cheap grinder, and also one that's nice and compact. (Most pepper grinders you can buy are not that small and many are not see through.) It's not a bad idea to me. I've never had much luck with mortar and pestle. Tue Feb 20 13:19:53 -0800 2007 2047888 40162 CrazyOne 2 2312840 Thank you, CrazyOne. That was precisely my idea. I could fill one with allspice, another with nutmeg (I think), and other whole spices. Tue Feb 20 20:37:26 -0800 2007 2311309 10357 Lgalen 3 2511559 I'm not intricately familiar with the grinder design of the disposables, but would they really work with large spices like nutmeg? The grinders I have at home work because the salt rocks and peppercorns are small enough to get "caught" between the grinding teeth and then get crushed and ground. I don't see how nutmeg or other large spices would behave the same way... wouldn't they just scrape around and not get ground up? I use a microplane for cinnamon, nutmeg, and anise. I just buy small amounts of ground spices like coriander and allspice. If the occasion comes up that I want to use the whole spice, I'll just smash it with the pestle so the liquid gets infused with the spice. Tue Apr 24 14:54:28 -0700 2007 2312840 42944 leanneabe 2 2313203 CrazyOne Wrote: ""I've never had much luck with mortar and pestle."" If you are referring to items like whole pepper corns or hard seeds, yes it poses some problems, but they need to be cracked or scored first. Generally all they need is a love tap with the pestle. I also keep a kitchen set of pliers handy just in case. (Nothing special in the pliers other than they are stainless steel and used only for food) I do see your point in having prefilled mills handy so I got some links together below. http://www.global-grinders.com/index.html http://www.fantes.com/peugeot_pepper_salt.htm (The $13.99 looks rather reasonable). http://www.factorydirect2you.com/kurigr1.html ----- Wed Feb 21 03:47:32 -0800 2007 2311309 60276 RShea78 3 2315148 Heh, Global Grinders just looking at the design and their apparent market would appear to be the supplier for TJ's. Their bottles look just like that. Doesn't look like they are set up for small sales, plus there would appear to be shipping from South Africa in that case, but on a large scale like supplying stores that wouldn't matter. BTW, the sea salt grinder at my local TJ's was just $1.69 (happened to be there last night so yes, I of course had to look at the price). I gather they aren't using the special steel (described in the Peugeot link) in the disposables, though, so it would be best to throw out the salt or buy the pepper units (pepper is $1.99, but they seemed to be out, had only lemon pepper at I think $2.49) In the spirit of avoiding too much wastage the disposables lose out, yes, but in terms of personal cash outlay it would take 5 of the disposables to equal even a $10 mill. I really like the Kuhn Rikon design in the last link, tho. Very pricey, but cool. Wed Feb 21 13:34:34 -0800 2007 2313203 40162 CrazyOne 4 2315824 BTW, I just had the TJ's grinders out and should note: the grinding mechanism is *plastic* on both the salt and the pepper bottles. Who knows how long this will last. Certainly not as long as a good mill. Also it may not mill certain spices too well, not really sure, although if it does okay on the pepper and salt, I guess it should be fine for most. Just another piece of data to throw into the equation. Wed Feb 21 16:32:27 -0800 2007 2315148 40162 CrazyOne 1 2313518 I have some I got at carrabbas. No, I didn't steal them - I asked and they gave them to me. I use them for camping trips, picnis and at work. I use a set of pliers to grab the top and just tilt it off. I've been refilling them for at least 4 years. Wed Feb 21 07:11:42 -0800 2007 2047888 46649 kayakado 1 2508920 Goziner's info below is correct. You can easily pop the top off a McCormick disposable spice mill grinder in less than 60 seconds and refill it. I just did it using Goziner's instructions and the exact same advice which I found on another cooking website. What you do is gently slide the tip of a knife (an old butter knife is fine; the less sharp, the better) under the edge of the black plastic. The entire black plastic part is simply held on by a raised ridge in the glass that runs completely around the top of the grinder mill about 3/4 of an inch from the top. I held both the knife and the glass part of the mill in my left hand so that neither the knife nor the glass container could move, turn or rotate. Then I very slowly rotated the black plastic part over the knife, pulling the black plastic AWAY from the tip of the knife and the glass container as I turned it. You will find that after about a full turn or two, part of the black plastic is up and away from the ridge. From that point on, you just gently wiggle the rest of it off the top. I just re-filled my McCormick black pepper grinder mill with whole Mexican oregano. In any case, it turns out to be so easy-to-do that I am going to buy more McCormick disposable spice mills and slowly create a complete matching set. It is much cheaper. more intelligent and environmentally conscious to buy and re-use these disposable grinding mills. This is especially the case because we will find them on sale, and spend much less than many others seem to be doing for what can only be called "status" grinding mills. The Celtic Sea Salt company at www.celticseasalt.com also has some nice grinding mills that come with their salts. Their mills have plastic tops that unscrew, are designed to be refillable and they look to use the same plastic grinding parts and fittings as do the McCormick "disposables". Therefore, IMHO, refilling McCormick mills is an extremely intelligent thing to do because they will last much longer than anyone who is trying to convince you to buy "status" mills appears to believe. Those people are just not very canny consumers. You've heard the phrase: too much money, too few brains? People who nay-say your and my wish to economize, be thrifty, and ecologically conscious have opinions and perspectives which can easily be dispensed with. Best Regards, Lee Johnson Mon Apr 23 21:16:04 -0700 2007 2047888 93781 leejohnson 1 2509795 I have a few that I got at Barraba's and I use a channel lock pliers to remove the lids to refill them. I grab the lid with the pliers and pull it off at an angle. The lids are snap off and on - no threads. I use them for camping and picnics. Tue Apr 24 08:10:53 -0700 2007 2047888 46649 kayakado 2 2606345 I tried using a flathead screwdriver, and while trying to hold the lip open to unscrew the lid on a trader joe pepper mill, I cracked a small piece of plastic loose (~1/4"). The lid opened easily after that with just hand loosening. I've used the plastic grinder through four fillings of peppercorns and it is still grinding well. Hope this helps, though not quite elegant. Sun May 27 13:57:49 -0700 2007 2509795 101439 radar101 3 2608687 That's weird. The plastic mills I have from Trader Joe's are still ones that can be unscrewed easily. There is nothing that prevents refilling the ones I have. Maybe they used to have different ones, or some locations have had different ones? Mon May 28 17:36:00 -0700 2007 2606345 40162 CrazyOne 1 3110313 Easy way --- soften and expand the plastic by using water heated to 190 degrees F., poured to a level that submerses only the grinding mechanism to no higher than its' collars edge, while the emptied bottle rests inverted in a Pyrex measuring cup. The plastic collar will pop off when pulled gently, wash and dry all parts with hairdryer. Salt and pepper grinding mechanisms appear to be common. To reattach after filling...simply put collar and wheel back together securing one within the other, place back atop the bottle---then cover with a soft dish towel, and exert a direct downward force against the top of the bottle and its' collar, while they are on a counter top. I have refilled in this manner tens of times with no issues noteworthy. The serrated edge grinder wheel internals are of a harder composition base than the securing collar, so many refills are possible. Fri Nov 09 09:19:46 -0800 2007 2047888 141584 babydavid 1 4493905 I got the lid off my McCormick grinder by *pulling* off the lid with pliers, rather than trying to pry it off. The refill works great, better than any peppermill I've ever had. Wed Mar 11 07:35:34 -0700 2009 2047888 273532 mateopucu 2 4494206 I'm glad to hear that. Did the grinder have a tall collar like these? http://www.mccormick.com/Products/Herbs-and-Spices/Grinders.aspx I bought one, hoping to fill it with a black peppercorn + cumin seed mix. So it was an unhappy surprise when I couldn't remove the top. Wed Mar 11 09:03:05 -0700 2009 4493905 221993 Channa 3 4495976 I have two like that. The tops do come off. It takes a fair amount of force. Jim Wed Mar 11 17:16:52 -0700 2009 4494206 11307 Jim Washburn 4 4499795 Success! And the roast peppercorn + cumin mix is very tasty indeed. Thu Mar 12 18:39:26 -0700 2009 4495976 221993 Channa 1 4501610 I use a pair of pliers to get the tops off the grinders from Carrabba's. I just grip it and pull at a slight angle and they come right off, push to put them back on. We use these to go camping, so we don't need to take expensive grinders. Fri Mar 13 10:24:50 -0700 2009 2047888 46649 kayakado 2 4732181 ok,I left my coffee grinder at my brother's house (I watch it in winter) was goin nuts..... I have both a McCormick & a large see through PM. Tried to open both 3 wks ago...gave up.....this mornin could not take it any longer.....brothers house is to far.......faught with the plastic one -never opened - go back to McCormick ...search net ........thank god !!! OK, ITS NOT CIVET COFFEE ( Kopi Luwak ) BUT LIFE IS GOOD TODAY. TY ALL, Steve Nostradome http://www.myspace.com/nostradome Mon Jun 01 08:15:06 -0700 2009 4501610 324783 Nostradome 1 4748539 Just refilled my McCormick grinder even tho they say do not re-use....very easy just slipped a butter knife under the black rim and pried off the top without any difficulty by see-sawing the top upwards.....re-filled with black peppercorns and put the top back on.....also with a see-saw movement downwards this time. Sat Jun 06 13:34:59 -0700 2009 2047888 55359 blondee_47 1 4750473 Not worth the effort. You can purchase an excellent ceramic spice mill at Ikea for $6.99 which attaches to extra spice jars also available from Ikea at 4 for $4.99. This is a top notch product which will last a lifetime. See 365+ spice grinder and jars at: http://www.ikea.com/us/en/search/?query=spice Sun Jun 07 12:04:32 -0700 2009 2047888 171170 josephnl 2 4751701 I have several of the IKEA grinders and love them, but they are considerably heavier and bulkier than the McCormicks, which are so small and light one can carry them almost everywhere, and I do. Jim Sun Jun 07 20:48:29 -0700 2009 4750473 11307 Jim Washburn