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The first time you found a severed arm or leg in your inventory, you probably paused to wonder how that may ever be useful to you. Maybe you wondered why you even picked it up in the first place.
Well, I’m here to affirm your instincts once again: hang on to everything in Conan Exiles until you can prove you don’t need it. For the grossest things, the answer is all in the grinder, and if it’s not in the grinder, it’s in the fluid press.
We’re about to deep dive into my favorite operations in all of Conan Exiles – The Conan Exiles grinder and its sister bench, the fluid press, are weird, wonderful, and incredibly useful stations to set up at your base.
Grinding icky things into core components is oddly satisfying in such a brutal and chaotic environment, and clearing your chests of oddball components feels good. Let the dust and guts fly. Finally, everything will have a use!
TL:DR: Should I Grind This?
The grinder, at its heart, is an organizational aid. You’ll wind up with many different parts and pieces in your inventory after an adventure into the exiled lands, try throwing them on the grinder or fluid press to process them into usable ingredients.
Be warned: you can also destroy beneficial items on accident in this machine, so if you’re someone that will be upset by this later, it’s best to look up any unfamiliar finds.
The grinder’s most useful product for your early game is bonemeal. You can grind bonemeal from bones, tusks, chitin, fangs, and other animal parts.
You can also use the grinder to grind salt from stone or spice from plant fiber. Later in the game, you’ll be using the grinder to create silver and gold dust from their respective coins and bars for alchemical base.
The fluid press has a couple of really useful outputs, but the main ones are blood, ichor, and oil. Add animal and human parts to the press to make blood, bone, and hide or blood, bone, and chitin.
You’ll create ichor if you press any “devolved” body parts, glands, or 50 putrid meat. The easiest way to make oil in the press is to use seeds, and when you have them, fish.
How to Build a Grinder
Let’s start by building your grinder station. You’ll need to be at least level 17 to learn the grinder feat, but after you’ve put the points in, the ingredients are not that difficult to procure. It will take 50 brick and 10 branch to craft a grinder. You will need to have a kiln constructed to process 10 stone into 1 brick.
The kiln also requires fuel, which can be either wood, coal, or oil. You can even use branches in a pinch, though they’re not very efficient.
Place your grinder with enough space around it for a fluid press, a firebowl cauldron, and an alchemist’s bench. Go ahead and craft an extra chest or two to store components.
See also: Conan Exiles Drawbridge Guide
How to Build a Fluid Press
You’ll have to wait a little longer to start pressing gooey things; the fluid press feat requires level 28 to learn. The feat will also teach you some useful recipes: desert berry pulp and highland berry pulp. These recipes can be used at your press once it is built. To build the press you will need 50 shaped wood, 10 twine, and 10 iron bar.
The twine is easy enough to make from fiber in your inventory, but the shaped wood will need to be made at a carpenters bench and the iron bar will need to be made at a kiln. It’s 10 wood for 1 shaped wood at the carpenter’s bench, and 2 ironstone for one iron bar at the kiln.
Place your fluid press next to your grinder, extra chests, alchemist’s bench, and firebowl cauldron.
What to Grind
So what should you throw in your new brick contraption? All sorts of things! The grinder doesn’t require any fuel to operate, so it’s an easy decision to throw body parts and animal drops in to see if they will grind.
Of course, don’t ever put anything that appears valuable in your grinder unless you’re sure you know you will receive a valuable ingredient in return. Funcom has a sick, but fair sense of humor, and benches are known to turn valuable items into rubbish.
To start, try putting in some bones, chitin, or claws to get bonemeal. Bonemeal is one of the most useful ingredients that a grinder produces.
If you add severed arms and legs to your grinder they will also produce bonemeal, but you’ll end up with some blood as well. When you’ve started hunting larger beasts, fangs, horns, and tusks will also produce bonemeal at the grinder.
You’ll find some of the items required in your oven and your fermentation barrel can only be produced at the grinder. Crystal and stone both produce salt when added to the grinder. If you’re looking for spice, try grinding orange phykos, plant fiber, or seeds at the station.
The grinder isn’t just for guts and parts, it can also help you process valuable ingredients into more usable forms. Adding gold and silver coins and bars to the grinder will turn them into gold and silver dust. All of the lotus blooms can be processed into their dust counterparts on the grinder.
What to Press
If you can’t grind it, you can probably press it. The fluid press will pick up where the grinder left off and help clear out your “IDK” chest for good.
Any animal head (that you don’t want to hang on your wall) can be smushed in the fluid press for both bone and blood. Carcasses will net you bone and blood as well, but will also add some chitin or hide to the fluid press’s inventory.
A fluid press can also make ichor from spare parts. If the item has the word “devolved” in front of it, such as a devolved bat wind, try it in the fluid press to produce ichor. You can also press abysmal flesh, or even 50 putrid meat, to create ichor.
If you’re looking for demon blood, the fluid press is also the way to go. If you manage to butcher any parts from a felled demon beast, try putting them in the press for demon blood and bones.
Lastly, the fluid press will be your main source of oil. You can press both fish and seeds to produce oil at the station.
Farming for Grinder and Fluid Press Ingredients
The only real requirement for stocking your grinder or fluid press is murder. Most of the components you will process on these machines need to be hacked off of corpses, whether they be animal or human.
If you’ve wondered what a cleaver is used for in Conan Exiles, it’s not just about meat. Cleavers remove heads, claws, arms, and other parts to be processed in your grinder or your fluid press. If you are looking specifically for bones, try a pick on the corpse instead.
If you are murder shopping for a particular ingredient, consider upgrading your cleaver or pick to get even more parts per corpse. You can also add a tool upgrade kit to your cleaver or pick to increase its efficiency when processing corpses.
The pick is already the tool players consider upgrading first, and I would make the argument that its corpse-processing ability should further solidify its position at the top of your list.
How to Use Products from the Grinder
Bonemeal will be your first venture when using the grinder. Bonemeal is predominantly used in compost. After building your compost heap, combine plant fiber, bonemeal, and putrid meat into compost.
There is also a recipe to make compost from dung and plant fiber, but until you have an animal pen operation, bonemeal is the easier solution.
Use your compost to grow rare plant seeds in your planter and make your operation more efficient. You can also build multiple compost heaps for grub production.
As long as you leave at least one compost in the heap it will passively produce grubs. These grubs can be used to catch fish or turn into silk (if you have a T4 named tanner thrall stationed at your artisan table).
Once you’ve ground some seeds into spice use it in your fermentation barrel to make rum and grog. You can also use it at your stove for items like enhanced gruel and cooked pork strips. Many recipes also call for salt at your stove and salt can be made at the grinder out of stone.
Drinks will help with harsh weather while you’re out exploring and food is the most efficient way to replenish your health bar. Figuring out a couple of easy-to-make recipes will make your life much easier out in the desert.
You’ll need piles of gold and silver dust for making alchemical base at your alchemist’s table. Grind up gold or silver coins and bars at your grinder to make their corresponding dust. Alchemical base is used to make everything from healing potions and wraps to advanced weapons, armor, and shields.
It is one of the most constant ingredients in end-game crafting, and you should hold on to any of its components if you get your hands on them early.
How to Use Products from the Fluid Press
Blood comes from pressing most body parts in the fluid press and is predominantly used to make potent compost. You’ll need potent compost to grow any of the lotus seeds, and lotus blooms can be turned into powerful potions that affect your stats at the alchemist’s bench.
Crushing “devolved” parts in the fluid press, as well as glands, abysmal meat, or a large stack of 50 putrid meat, will net you ichor. Ichor is the final ingredient in alchemical base, and that will be your most important use for it.
Alchemical base is used for the best healing items and armor in the game. If you’ve managed to capture a T4 alchemist thrall you can even turn ichor and bark into oil at your alchemist’s bench.Â
The last big item to manufacture at your fluid press is oil. Oil is the most efficient and longest burning fuel in the game and a wildly helpful ingredient for an advanced base. Use it to power anything that you’d normally use wood or coal to operate. Squishing fish or seeds at the fluid press is the easiest way to make oil.
Seeds make enough oil for your early game-endeavors, but you’ll want to set up a fish farm for maximum oil production at your fluid press. After placing your fish farm, you may feel like you’re in the same boat as when you collected seeds to make oil.
On the surface, collecting bugs is the same process. Instead of collecting them, though, consider setting up a bug farm at your base. Use the bonemeal from your grinder to create compost in a compost heap and you’ll never be short on grubs for your fish traps.
You only need to leave one compost in your compost heap for it to produce grubs passively. The three different types of fish produce “scaled” amounts of oil. You’ll need 10 unappetizing fish to make one oil, 5 savory fish to make one oil, or only one exotic fish to make one oil in the fluid press.
Stay on Your Grind
After a few playthroughs of Conan, I always set my grinder and fluid press up at the entrance to my base. This operation is my first stop when my bags are full of every oddity I came across on my adventure.
My horse, my panther, and I all dump our inventories either directly into the machines, or at the very least, into the chests nearby to be sorted into the machines later.
The grinder and fluid press are active players in the addictive nature of Conan Exiles. Survival games have a unique way of allowing the player to organize their components. Most things can be processed for parts, used directly in a recipe, and even re-crafted later, but you’ll need the proper stations to accomplish these steps.
It makes us feel good when everything has a purpose and even strange finds can be processed into a neutral, usable ingredient. The grinder and fluid press are the apexes of this concept, and you’ll quickly find yourself as addicted as I am to smushing every severed arm and piece of bone you find.
It will only be a matter of time until you grind something that shouldn’t have been ground or press something that would have been better off whole, but that’s the nature of being an Exile.
Grinder FAQs
Question: What does a Grinder do in Conan Exiles?
Answer: A grinder can be used to make bonemeal from bones, chitin, fangs, tusks, and other parts. It can also turn stone into salt or seeds into spice. Later in the game, the grinder can be used to grind coins and bars into silver and gold dust that is used to craft alchemical base.
Question: What does a Fluid press do in Conan Exiles?
Answer: Put heads, arms, legs, and carcasses into a fluid press to get blood, bone, chitin, and hide. Try pressing abysmal meat, “devolved” parts, glands, and even 50 putrid meat to create ichor in the press. You can use either seeds or fish in the press to create oil.
Question: How do You Make a Grinder in Conan Exiles?
Answer: You will need a kiln to make brick from stone for your first grinder. At level 17, learn the grinder feat and craft one for 50 brick and 10 branch.
Question: How do You Get Oil from the Fluid Press in Conan Exiles?
Answer: You can press any extra seeds in your chests into oil if you like, but the most efficient way to get oil from the fluid press is to set up a fish farm. Fish are the most efficient way to create oil in your fluid press.
Question: What can I Put in a Grinder in Conan Exiles?
Answer: Anything, but be careful, some things are not very valuable once you grind them. The best items for your grinder are bones, chitin, fangs, and other related items. If you need salt and spice for your oven or fermentation barrel, try stones and seeds in your grinder.
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