Minecraft resource gathering

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Preface

This book is intended to give instructions on the best ways to gather resources, like diamonds, in Minecraft.

Versions

The book isn’t meant to be version specific. It gives info regarding older versions as well. For example, the page about diamonds will describe the best strategies for mining diamonds both prior to the Caves and Cliffs update and after.

Amethyst

Amethyst blocks are a decorative block found in Geodes. Its texture is purple with sparkles, and it makes unique sounds when walked on, broken, placed or hit.

Versions

Amethist blocks were added in the the Caves and Cliffs Part 1 update (1.17), and first appeared in snapshot 20w45a.

Acquiring

Amethyst blocks generate inside amethyst geodes, which can be found underground at lower altitudes. Amethyst geodes have an outer layer of smooth basalt, a middle layer of calcite and an inner layer of amethyst.

Amethyst blocks are of two types, regular and budding. Budding amethyst has an X on it and grows amethyst crystals over time. Do not attempt to destroy it as it does not drop anything.

Amethyst crystals can be farmed using a piston and observer. Nine amethyst crystals in a 3x3 grid can be crafted into an amethyst block.

Ancient Debris

Ancient Debris is a rare ore found in the Nether. Once smelted into Netherite Scrap, it is used to craft Netherite Ingots, the highest tier of material, which can be used in a Smithing Table to upgrade diamond tools and armor.

36 blocks of Ancient Debris must be mined to upgrade a full set of gear (as it requires 9 Netherite Ingots). Additional Ancient Debris can be used to upgrade more gear or craft Netherite Blocks and Lodestones.

Obtaining

Ancient Debris generates in the lower parts of the Nether, being most common at Y=16, so it is recommended to search at that level. Only a few blocks of Ancient Debris are can be found in each chunk. In addition, it never generates exposed to air, meaning that you must dig through the Nether to find it.

Every Nether biome contains Ancient Debris, but it is more difficult to mine for in Basalt Deltas due to the abundance of Blackstone and Basalt blocks, which are harder to mine through.

Since you are mining through large volumes of Netherrack, care must be taken to avoid being caught out by underground lava pockets. A Fire Resistance potion will eliminate this worry, but armor with a level of Fire Protection is a more practical way to give yourself time to get out of lava.

Ancient Debris is not affected by the Fortune enchantment and requires a Diamond Pickaxe or higher to successfully mine.

As well as generating in the Nether, blocks of Ancient Debris can be found in some Bastion chests.

Ancient Debris in loot chests
Bastion type	Count	Chance
Treasure	1	10%
Treasure	2	4%
Hoglin Stable	1	12%
Hoglin Stable	2	5%
Other	1	13.48%

Ore Generation Specifics

Two types of Ancient Debris veins generate in the Nether. Small veins generate uniformly across all heights, but can only contain up to 2 blocks. Large veins generate in a triangular distribution at levels 8–24, meaning that they're most common at Y=16. They can contain up to 3 blocks. However, most veins of both types only contain a single block.

TNT Strip Mining

Strip mine in a straight line for 50 blocks (you can go further if you wish). Then walk back through your tunnel, placing TNT every four blocks. Once back at the start, ignite one piece of TNT and return to a safe area. The explosions clear Netherrack, leaving behind the blast-proof Ancient Debris. The process can be repeated by digging sideways for 15 blocks and, from there, creating another tunnel parallel to the first one.

This method uses a lot of TNT, so it is useful to have farmable sources for Sand and Gunpowder so that it can be crafted in bulk.

Bed Mining

Another method to reveal ancient debris is using Beds, which explode in the Nether. This can be an effective technique earlier in the game since beds are cheap to craft. However, Beds are difficult to transport (since they don't stack) and their explosion creates fire which can obstruct Ancient Debris or damage the player.

The basic concept is, as with other methods, to remove Netherrack and (hopefully) reveal any nearby Ancient Debris. You can do this by digging a short tunnel into the Netherrack, and repeating the following steps at intervals along it. You can extend the tunnel as you go.

At eye level, dig a hole into the tunnel's wall that extends as far as you can reach.
At the end of the hole, place a bed. (To place it, you must right-click the second-to-last block of the hole.)
Right-click the bed to explode it.
Check the crater for any newly-exposed Ancient Debris, being mindful of any fire.

To help with the issue of transporting beds, you can instead carry the materials to craft beds (Planks and Wool). When mining with Beds, be wary of the fact that the explosion will also damage you. This is up to 13 HP (Hard difficulty) without armor, but full Diamond Armor reduces this to 2 HP. If you only have weak armor, you can reduce the damage to 6 HP by partially blocking up the hole with a slab.

Manual Mining

Using a Diamond Pickaxe enchanted with at least Efficiency II, Netherrack can be broken instantly. This makes it easier to clear out large amounts of Netherrack at Y=16. Ancient Debris will be left intact due to its longer mining time.

This method carries a greater risk of dying to lava. To help with this, stand a few blocks away from mined blocks and have a building block in your off-hand to quickly block off any lava.

Uses

Ancient Debris can be smelted in a Furnace or Blast Furnace to create Netherite Scrap (awarding 2 XP). 4 Netherite Scraps can be combined with 4 Gold Ingots on a crafting table to create 1 Netherite Ingot.

Ancient Debris is one of the few blocks that are immune to explosions but can still be pushed by pistons.

History

Ancient Debris (along with other Netherite items) was added 1.16 (the Nether Update). They first appeared in snapshot 20w06a.^[1]

References

↑ Östergård, Adrian (2020-05-02). "Minecraft Snapshot 20w06a". Minecraft.net. Mojang. Retrieved 2023-01-13.

Apple

The texture for apples looks like this real-life red apple

Apples are a renewable food source and crafting material obtainable from Oak trees and Villager trading.

Obtaining

Oak trees

The simplest way to gather an Apple is to cut down an Oak or Dark Oak tree and wait for its leaves to decay: each leaf has a 1 in 200 chance of dropping an apple.

A faster method is to manually break the leaves. You don't need a tool for this, but a Hoe enchanted with Efficiency lets you instantly break them. Furthermore, the Fortune enchantment (with any tool) improves your chances of receiving an apple.

How Fortune affects the drop rate for Apples
Enchantment	Drop rate
None	1 in 200
Fortune I	1 in 180
Fortune II	1 in 160
Fortune III	1 in 120

Villagers

Farmer villagers can sell 4 Apples for 1 Emerald. This is one of three possible second-tier (Apprentice) trades, meaning that ⅔ of Farmers will sell Apples.

Since the base price is 1 Emerald, this offer doesn't have any discounts and therefore isn't affected by positive reputation or curing. However, it is still worth curing Farmers to receive discounts on their other useful trades, including selling Golden Carrots and buying Potatoes/Carrots.

Chests

Apples can be found as loot in some naturally-generating Chests.

Chances of finding apples in different Chests
Chest	Chance	Chance (%)	Count
Bonus chest	5 in 11	45%	1–2
Stronghold crossing	15 in 62	24%	1–3
Igloo	5 in 21	24%	1–3
Village Plains house	10 in 43	23%	1–5
Village Weaponsmith	15 in 94	16%	1–3
Stronghold corridor	3 in 20	15%	1–3

Uses

An apple provides 4 hunger points and 2.4 saturation when eaten. In addition, surrounding an apple with 8 Gold Ingots at a Crafting Table makes a Golden Apple, which gives Regeneration II for 5 seconds and Absorption for 2 minutes.

You can feed Horses Apples to heal them by 4 health, or breed them if they are at full health.

Apples can also be composted, with a 65% chance of adding a compost layer. On average, you'll need 10.77 Apples to get 1 Bonemeal.

History

Java Edition

Java Edition Indev 0.31

Apples were first added in Indev version 0.31 as the second food item, after Mushrooms
They were only obtainable from the starter chest
Apples restored 4 health points when eaten (this was before the hunger bar was added)

Java Edition Infdev

When Minecraft left the Indev development stage, the starter house was removed, making Apples unobtainable

Java Edition Beta 1.8

Beta 1.8 introduced the hunger system, meaning that apples now restored hunger instead of health points
Apples (along with other foods) can now be stacked
Apples can now be found in Stronghold Chests

Java Edition 1.1

Apples were made a renewable resource in version 1.1, which added apples as a possible drop from Oak Leaves
1.1 also added Chests to Blacksmith Village buildings, which could contain apples

Java Edition 1.3.1

Farmer Villagers can now sell apples
Bonus Chests were added, which often contain apples

Java Edition 1.5

The drop rate for Apples from Leaves is now affected by Fortune

Java Edition 1.9

Igloos were added with Chests that sometimes contain Apples

Charcoal

Charcoal is a renewable fuel and crafting ingredient obtained by smelting logs. In most recipies that would require coal, charcoal can be used as a substitute. This makes it most valuable in the early game, when coal is scarce.

Obtaining

You get Charcoal by smelting logs in a furnace. You can use any source of fuel, such as planks (a sensible choice if you have access to lots of wood), coal or charcoal, and even lava buckets or blaze rods.

Uses

Charcoal is in many cases, a valid alternative to coal. It can be used as fuel, with each charcoal smelting 8 items. However, you can’t craft charcoal blocks like you can coal blocks.

Also, it’s used in the crafting recipes of campfires, fire charges, torches, and soul torches, as an alternative to regular coal.

Clay

Clay can be found in riverbeds, lake floors and in shallow oceans, and can be mined with a shovel (or your fist if you fancy drowning) to get clay balls, which can be smelted into bricks, or crafted back together into clay blocks, which can be smelted into terracotta.

It may help to use a potion of water breathing or enchant your helmet with respiration if you plan to mine clay in large quantities.

If you use Silk Touch, it drops the clay block.

Coal

A piece of coal in real life

Obtaining

Coal is found underground on any level and can be mined with any pickaxe. If you use a pickaxe enchanted with Silk Touch, it will drop the ore, which is pretty useless except for decoration. If your pickaxe is enchanted with fortune, you will get multiple pieces of coal.

Coal can also drop from the dangerous Wither Skeleton.

Uses

Coal can be used as a fuel. One piece of coal can smelt 8 items. However a Block Of Coal (crafted with 9 coal) can smelt 80 items. Blocks of coal can also be used as decoration. If you like the way they look, you might want to use charcoal, blaze rods, or lava as your primary source of fuel instead.

Concrete

Concrete cannot be found naturally in Minecraft. The only way to obtain it is to make it. Here's how.

Concrete powder

There are only three ingredients to craft Concrete Powder: 4 Sand, 4 Gravel, and any color of dye.

Turning it into concrete

You need to put the concrete powder in water to get concrete. And you're done!

Copper

A real life copper nugget.

Finding copper

Copper is found underground in the form of copper ore veins. Copper ore generates between layers -16 to 112 of the overworld, although it spawns more frequently in the Dripstone Caves biome.

Copper also generates as a part of copper ore veins, which are rare underground terrain features that are made up of copper ore, granite and raw copper blocks. They generate above layer 0

Mining copper

Players must mine copper with a stone, or higher quality, pickaxe. Mining the block with a wooden pickaxe will destroy the block without giving any copper ore.

Each copper ore drops between 2 and 4 copper.

Refining copper

When a copper ore block is broken, it will drop Raw Copper, which will have to be smelted to be turned into copper ingots.

Crafting recipes that use copper

Putting nine copper ingots in a square using a crafting table will craft a block of copper, while three copper ingots arranged in a vertical line will craft a lightning rod, and putting an amethyst shard and two copper ingots together in a vertical line will craft a spyglass.

Versions

Copper ore was officially added to Minecraft in the Caves & Cliffs update (1.17).^[1]

References

↑ "Minecraft - Caves & Cliffs: Part I - 1.17.0 (Bedrock)". Retrieved 10 January 2022.

Crops

There are a variety of crops that you can plant. Some are hard to farm and some are extremely difficult to farm and require a lot of patience.

First, you will need a hoe:

Crafting recipe:

	Wood	Wood
	Stick
	Stick

This makes a wooden hoe. You can replace the wood with stone, iron, gold, or, if you are desperate, diamond.

Crops

Wheat

Wheat is grown from Wheat seeds (just called "seeds" in the game),which can be found be breaking tall grass. You need a hoe of some kind, and grass or dirt. It is best to make the farm near water to speed up plant growth. Till the dirt using a hoe by using the interact button (not the attack button) with the hoe in your hand (you must be looking directly at the dirt or grass to do it). Then place the seed and either wait for it to grow or use bone meal from skeletons. These are the main ways to use most of these. Farm land also grows quicker when it is near water. Water can reach crops up to 4 blocks which means a 9 by 9 area of farm land with water in the middle creating 80 spaces with one water source. Once it has grown, break the wheat block and you will get Wheat and 0-2 seeds back. Add more seeds and expand your farm to increase efficiency.

Beetroot

Beetroot seeds can be planted the same way as Wheat seeds. 6 beets and a bowl can be crafted into beetroot soup, but Beetroot Soup does not stack.

Carrots

Carrots can be grown the same way as well, but the whole carrot is planted instead of finding seeds for it.

Potatoes

Potatoes are planted the same as carrots except a bit less efficient. it gives less hunger points and it has a chance to be a poisonous Potato (has green pieces coming around it) which has a 60% chance of giving you poison for 5 seconds. However, it is one of the few farmable foods that can be smelted to be better. Smelting a potato in a furnace gives you a cooked potato.

Melons

Melons are different from the others. Instead of the seed growing into a crop, the seed grows a stem that soon grows a crop onto nearby dirt on grass. The stem can not be bonemealed to quick melon access. These melon stems will keep growing melons as long as the stem is not broken and the places for it to grow it (the four blocks in each direction of it) are un-obstructed (no block placed there). Melon blocks can be broken. It will drop 5 - 7 melon slices. Using silk touch drops melon blocks instead, which can be crafted into nine melons.

Pumpkin

Pumpkin is grown the same as Melons, except it has different features. You can craft pumpkin pies by putting egg, sugar and carved pumpkin together in a line. To get a carved pumpkin, place the pumpkin and shear it. It will drop another pumpkin seed which you can use to farm again.

Bamboo

Bamboo is a crop that can be grown using Bamboo. You can find Bamboo in Jungles and Jungle temples. You can plant bamboo on a dirt block, grass block, coarse dirt, gravel, mycelium, podzol, sand, red sand, or the new rooted dirt. Basically any type of dirt. It will grow from 12-16 blocks in the air. When finished, break the block above the block on the ground which will make the whole bamboo stick shatter and the bamboo will fall, leaving the stem still there to grow. Bamboo is the only farming material so far that can be used as furnace fuel and can be turned into stick.

Cocoa beans

Cocoa beans are plants that are very unique. Cocoa beans are planted and can only be planted on jungle logs so be sure to pick some up while getting that bamboo. Fully grown Cocoa beans look orange instead of greenish or brownish. Harvest them by breaking them. then place them back.

Notes

Most crops in Minecraft have real world counterparts, with the exception of Nether Wart, Chorus Fruit, Nether Fungus (red and blue) and Glow Berries

Diamond

Cut diamonds in real life. Unrefined diamonds are often much more crude.

Introduction

Diamonds are one of the most sought-after resources in Minecraft, and is one of the rarest ores. It can be crafted into armor and tools, such as pickaxes.

Location

Diamonds are found deep underground (levels 5 to 12 are best for in version 1.16 and below, while after 1.17, the best place to find them is -20 to -64).

Methods

To mine diamonds, you will need an iron, diamond, or netherite pickaxe (2 or more are recommended, in case one breaks), food, and torches to keep mobs from spawning. It’s recommended to bring a water buckets (in case you fall into lava, a common incident while mining), a crafting table, a shovel for removing dirt and gravel, and a sword and armour in case mobs come. If you are further into the game, you may enchant your tool with "Fortune" (maximum level Fortune III) which gives more diamonds per ore mined (Maximum of 4 items per block of ore mined).

Emerald

A real life emerald.

Introduction

An emerald is a rare mineral in Minecraft added to the game in snapshot 12w21a of version 1.3.1 of the game. Emeralds should not be confused with the diamonds, that were added in the indev version of the game and at that time were referred to in the code as emeralds.

Acquisition methods

Trading

A very common speedrunning technique to getting emeralds is using a fletcher for stick trades. The fletcher will request 32 sticks and will offer 1 emerald. To get a fletcher you will need to put 4 blocks of wood in a crafting table just as you would to craft a crafting table and two flint above the wood and place the fletching table beside a villager that doesn't have a job/profession. There is a chance that it won't give you this stick trade, but all you have to do is break the fletching table and re-place it. Another method to trade for easy emeralds is to use glass panes for emeralds on a librarian to get emeralds.

Mining

When mining an emerald ore using an iron pick or a better one, one emerald will drop, assuming that the pickaxe is not enchanted with fortune. If it is, it may or may not drop an extra emerald per every level of fortune. The maximum level of a fortune enchantment is Fortune III, thus the maximum amount of emeralds that can be dropped by an ore is 4. If you mine an emerald ore using a silk touch pickaxe, you will get the ore block instead of an emerald.

Crafting

A block of emerald (which is crafted by putting 9 emeralds in a crafting table can be uncrafted to 9 emeralds. In single player, you won’t find emerald blocks lying around, but in multiplayer you can receive them from other players.

Smelt

You can receive emeralds by smelting an emerald ore in a furnace, however this probably isn’t the smartest option, since that will require using fuel. If you have emerald ores in you inventory that you wish to convert to emeralds, you can just place them on the ground and mine them with a pickaxe. If for whatever reason, you don’t have a pickaxe, you can smelt them using any fuel.

Structures

Emeralds can be found naturally generating in chests in the following structures:

Buried treasure
Desert temple
End city
Igloo
Jungle temple
Shipwreck
Underwater ruins
Village (inside the chests of some of the houses)

Mob drops

If a fox that is holding an emerald dies, it will always drop the emerald. You can convince the fox to drop the emerald without killing it by throwing food items on the ground near it.

Vindicators and evokers may or may not drop an emerald upon death. If killed via a weapon enchanted, the maximum amount of emeralds increases by one per every level of the enchantment. If using a sword enchanted by enchantment III, the maximum number of emeralds dropped is 4.

Usage

Currency

The main use of emeralds in Minecraft is as a currency. They can be used to buy items from villagers and wandering traders.

Beacon

Another use of emeralds is to select powers from a beacon. The player should choose a power from the ones available and then put an emerald in the slot. Emerald blocks can also be used to make the pyramid below the beacon.

Crafting recipes that use emeralds

Crafting recepie:

Emerald	Emerald	Emerald
Emerald	Emerald	Emerald
Emerald	Emerald	Emerald

This makes a Block of Emerald.