Netherrack

Overview

Netherrack is the red stone that makes up most of the Nether, and it has two properties that matter far more than its appearance. First, it is extremely soft: a hardness of 0.4 means it breaks almost instantly with any pickaxe, which is why tunnelling through the Nether is so much faster than tunnelling through the Overworld and why bed mining for ancient debris works at all. Second, fire placed on netherrack burns forever and never spreads to anything that is not adjacent — so a single netherrack block with a fire on top is a permanent light source and a permanent decorative flame, which is what every fireplace in every Minecraft build is made of. It smelts into nether brick, which is a genuinely good dark building material, and 4 nether bricks make the block used in fortress-style builds. Netherrack can be converted: bone meal on netherrack next to crimson or warped nylium turns it into that nylium, which is how you grow fungus farms. It is also the base for the ordinary Nether ore blocks, and it burns as fuel for nothing at all.

Permanent fireplaces — fire on netherrack never goes out — plus nether bricks for building, and a cheap infinite supply of blocks for bridging and walling off a Nether base.

Netherrack is a Nether block in Minecraft Java Edition 1.21.4. There is no way to craft it; you have to find it and mine it. It breaks almost instantly, with a hardness of just 0.4.

Anything below a wooden pickaxe breaks it without leaving a drop. It drops as the same block you mined. With a blast resistance of only 0.4 it will not survive an explosion.

Sixty-four fit in one inventory slot. Its crafting uses are Netherite Upgrade, Rib Armor Trim, and Nether Brick.

How to get it

Mine it with any pickaxe anywhere in the Nether; its hardness of 0.4 means it breaks in a fraction of a second. A single tunnel produces hundreds of blocks without effort.

Tips

Place 1 netherrack and light it for a fireplace that never burns out and never spreads to your floor.
It smelts into nether brick, and 4 bricks make the block, which is one of the better dark building materials.
Bone meal netherrack beside crimson or warped nylium and it converts, which starts a renewable fungus farm.
Its hardness of 0.4 means bed mining and TNT clear enormous volumes of it in seconds.

How long it takes to break

Hardness 0.4 puts Netherrack at 2 seconds a block bare-handed, or 0.1 seconds with the right tool at netherite tier.

Below wooden the block breaks and simply vanishes. Bring the right tier or leave it in the ground.

The Efficiency formula is level² + 1 added to tool speed — at V that is about 2 times the unenchanted rate.

* breaks the block but yields no drop
Tool	No enchantment	Efficiency III	Efficiency V
Hand *	2 s	2 s	2 s
Wooden	0.3 s	instant	instant
Stone	0.15 s	instant	instant
Iron	0.1 s	instant	instant
Diamond	0.1 s	instant	instant
Netherite	0.1 s	instant	instant
Golden	instant	instant	instant

Properties

Netherrack resists blasts at 0.4, which is not enough to survive anything explosive nearby. Light does not pass through it, and it emits none of its own. 64 fit in a slot — a full stack. It is not renewable: what the world has is all it will ever have. A pickaxe is the fastest choice here. A tool of the wrong class is no better than your fist — the speed bonus is tied to the block's own tool tag.

Transparent: No
Required tool: Wooden Pickaxe
Renewable: No