OK, I'm headed to eBay.

No, a rolling pin won't work on dry basil. Just kind of flattens it out, and breaks it into large pieces. A coffee grinder or blender works OK, but you end up getting powdered spice, not flakes of spice. Crushing with hands will end up with a large range of sizes. Mouli's rock. I've ordered a second one. But they're all "vintage".

Is this for producing herbs for sale? I’m wondering why the pieces have to be uniform? I find hands and the rolling pin work fine. I actually don’t usually rub herbs until I use them. I just have the branches loose in the kitchen and rub as required or I use them whole. I do have my mother’s Mouli legumes but I’ve never used it for herbs.

Not for sale, but to the extent buyers might like the spices uniformly ground and not powdered, I do too.

I tend to keep my herbs whole until use, as I mentioned above. I think that pre grinding, by increasing the surface area, causes loss of flavour. I’ve just pruned my bay tree and am inundated with branches. I’ve just hung some of them in the basement until I need them.

I prefer to store my herbs roughly broken into pieces. Whole herbs, depending on the herb, take up too much room but I also don't want them too fine, as, like floral mentions, I feel the flavor degrades too quickly. When adding to the food I am cooking I too will quickly rub the herbs between my finger/hands to crush them finer.

Rodney

I have six-eight gallons of basil leaves. You know how much room that would take up hanging somewhere on branches, or even as bowl-fulls of leaves? I've been drying them in gallon bunches in the garage. When sealed, finely chopped herbs won't lose much flavor. Where's it going to go? But sure, if you leave it out exposed to the air, it'll lose flavor.

I give away my dried basil as well, and no one wants a sack of leaves.

OK, I've come to a conclusion about this.

As I said, I have a small Mouli spice grinder, and I got a small Zyliss one as well. The Zyliss has a hopper that is a bit larger than the Mouli. They are engineered quite differently, and I think the Zyliss is formally for grinding hard cheeses. They both work adequately for grinding dried foliage, but it takes a LONG TIME to grind gallons of it, like a season's worth of basil. A tablespon or two at a time. Confronted with a gallon or two of dried basil leaves, I said, what the hay, and filled my kitchen blender with the leaves. Floral suggested this way back when. Press go, and buzzzzzzzz, ground leaves! You have to tip and tilt the blender while it is grinding to get everything mixed, but it works! Not quite as fine a grind as the hand grinders, but very nice, nonetheless. Thank you, Floral, for the suggestion.

So the answer to grinding large amounts of dried herb foliage is a standard kitchen blender. It works! I now have a quart or so of dried ground basil. That should last me a few years, and maybe I can give some away (though most of my friends grow their own basil). I think I won't be growing basil next year!

A coffee grinder always worked well for me,

I only have Krups grinders, and that's too small to do gallons of leaves. You get a few tablespoons of leaves in each load.

It's too bad that basil is one of the herbs that loses its flavor and aroma pretty quickly, even if stored in an air tight container.

I'm glad you found that a blender will do the job for you. If you had used the term "herb grinder" instead of "spice grinder" you may have had more luck in your search. Herbs are the leaves, green stems, and flowers used to flavor foods.

Good point about "spice" versus "herb". I didn't call out basil until well into the thread. I'm certainly not going to be grinding gallons of seeds.

I have my herb grinder which is similar to a coffee grinder, but I also have an Ultimate Chopper which is what I make pesto with. It's a smaller food processor that is very powerful! Usually a couple of pulses is all I need for chopping herbs. The more pulses, the smaller the grind.

It would still take some time to do gallons, but I think it would do 4-5xs what a coffee grinder would do. I love mine!

The kitchen blender solution mentioned above would do more than a coffee grinder. Mine takes a litre. That’s a lot of dried herbs. The chopper is presumably designed for fresh herbs so I don’t know how it would fare with dried. I just chop fresh with a knife. Low tech, total control over the cut, zero set up time, easy to wash up and takes up no extra storage space.