Pepper grinder backing up? A quick and easy way to fix it.

Our pepper grinder has been getting less effective at grinding over time. Today, I was finally unable to coerce any peppery goodness out no matter how much I twisted.

However, our salt grinder is the exact model and went into use at the same time, though remains just fine.

I realized that peppercorns are sort l of moist and squishy, while salt is hard and dry. This difference explains why the pepper grinder has accumulated pepper particles until backing up, and salt get crushed out just fine day after day.

And there, in that moment, the solution was discovered: just put some salt in there and grind it out.

I removed all peppercorns, added salt, and ground it fine, and then big. A lot more ground pepper came out than I expected, and a couple whole peppercorns as well.

It’s working good as new, and I did not need to take the thing apart and scrub its mechanisms. For a bonus I have a little bit of premixed, preground salt and pepper to use for the new few days.