Overview
In Minecraft 1.21.4, Deepslate Iron Ore is a stone-family block. There is no way to craft it; you have to find it and mine it. A hardness of 4.5 makes it slow going without the right tool.
Anything below a stone pickaxe breaks it without leaving a drop. Breaking it produces Raw Iron. It stacks to 64.
It goes into exactly one recipe: Iron Ingot.
About the deepslate set
How long it takes to break
Deepslate Iron Ore has a hardness of 4.5. By hand that is 23 seconds per block; with the correct tool at netherite tier it is 0.75 seconds.
Iron manages 1.2 seconds and diamond 0.85, which makes diamond the tier that changes how this block feels.
A weaker tool still breaks it, but anything under stone returns nothing — you spend the time and lose the drop, which is how most veins get wasted.
Efficiency contributes its level squared plus one to tool speed, which makes Efficiency V roughly 3.8 times faster than the plain tool.
| Tool | No enchantment | Efficiency III | Efficiency V |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hand * | 23 s | 23 s | 23 s |
| Wooden * | 11 s | 1.9 s | 0.85 s |
| Stone | 1.7 s | 0.5 s | 0.25 s |
| Iron | 1.2 s | 0.45 s | 0.25 s |
| Diamond | 0.85 s | 0.4 s | 0.2 s |
| Netherite | 0.75 s | 0.4 s | 0.2 s |
| Golden * | 1.9 s | 1.1 s | 0.6 s |
Properties
Blast resistance on Deepslate Iron Ore is 3, so an explosion nearby will usually take it out. It stops light entirely and gives off no light. A single slot takes 64, the usual full stack. The block is tagged for pickaxes, and only that class gets the speed bonus; everything else mines at bare-hand rate. Broken normally it drops Raw Iron rather than itself; Silk Touch is what returns the block, and Fortune raises the ordinary drop instead.
- Transparent
- No
- Required tool
- Stone Pickaxe
Where it generates
Iron is the backbone of the mid game and the ore with the widest generation range of any: it appears in mountain peaks above Y=200 and in deep caves alike. Since 1.18 the mountain band has made snowy peaks and jagged peaks a genuinely fast way to gather iron without going underground at all. Ore drops raw iron rather than the block, so a furnace or blast furnace is still required. Iron golem farms eventually replace mining entirely.
Iron generates in three overlapping bands: this middle one peaking at Y=16, a large mountain band from about Y=80 to Y=384 peaking near Y=232, and a small, thinly scattered band from bedrock up to about Y=72.
- Generation range
- Y -24 … Y 56
- Best Y level
- Y 16
- Densest at
- Y 16
- Dimension
- Overworld
- Experience dropped
- 0–0
Drops
Deepslate Iron Ore drops Raw Iron.
Used to craft
Deepslate Iron Ore is an ingredient in 1 recipes, producing Iron Ingot.
Guides and tools that cover this
Frequently asked questions
How do you get Deepslate Iron Ore in Minecraft?
Deepslate Iron Ore generates naturally in the world; breaking it yields Raw Iron.
What tool do you need to break Deepslate Iron Ore?
Stone Pickaxe or better is required; anything weaker destroys the block without dropping it.
Is Deepslate Iron Ore blast resistant?
Deepslate Iron Ore has a blast resistance of 3, so an explosion nearby will destroy it.
How many Deepslate Iron Ore fit in one stack?
A stack is 64, and a double chest of them comes to 3,456.
How long does Deepslate Iron Ore take to break?
0.75 seconds with a netherite-tier tool of the right class, or 23 seconds bare-handed.
