Overview
Charcoal is coal made from wood, and it is functionally identical: 8 items smelted per piece, 4 torches per craft with a stick, and the same use in campfires. The one difference is that it does not stack with coal in the same slot, which is a minor annoyance in a fuel chest. What makes it worth knowing about is renewability. A tree farm plus a furnace produces charcoal indefinitely, and — crucially — one log smelted with charcoal produces more charcoal than it consumed, so the system is self-sustaining after the first piece of fuel. That matters enormously in a world where coal veins are far from base, on an island start, or in a skyblock-style challenge. It also matters for anyone building large: torches by the stack for a mining project, or fuel for a furnace array smelting hundreds of ore, is far cheaper from a tree farm you already have than from a coal expedition. Any log or stripped log smelts into charcoal, so the wood type makes no difference. Any world with trees has a fuel supply, which is the whole point.
Renewable furnace fuel and torch material from a tree farm, which removes any dependence on finding coal veins near a base. It is coal that grows back.
Charcoal is a crafting material item in Minecraft Java Edition 1.21.4. Sixty-four fit in one inventory slot. Put Oak Log in a furnace and this is what comes out.
It is an ingredient in 4 recipes, among them Campfire, Fire Charge, Soul Torch and 1 more.
How to get it
Smelt any log or stripped log in a furnace to get 1 charcoal each. One charcoal smelts 8 items, so smelting 8 logs with 1 charcoal returns 8 charcoal — the system pays for itself immediately.
Tips
- Charcoal does not stack with coal, so keep them in separate slots in the fuel chest.
- Smelting 8 logs costs 1 charcoal and returns 8, which makes a tree farm a perpetual fuel supply.
- Any log works, including stripped ones, so the wood type is purely a matter of what your farm grows.
- Bamboo is not a log and cannot be smelted into charcoal, despite growing faster than any tree.
Properties
In a furnace it burns for 80 seconds, which smelts 8 items. One inventory slot holds 64, so a double chest holds 3,456.
- Stack size
- 64
- Fuel value
- 80 s
- Category
- Materials
How to get it
Furnace · 10s · 0.15 XP
Charcoal
Any log that burns — Nether stems do not count — Dark Oak Log, Dark Oak Wood, Stripped Dark Oak Log, Stripped Dark Oak Wood, Pale Oak Log, Pale Oak Wood, Stripped Pale Oak Log, Stripped Pale Oak Wood, Oak Log, Oak Wood, Stripped Oak Log, Stripped Oak Wood +24 more
Dropped by blocks
Mining Campfire drops Charcoal.
Used to craft
Charcoal is an ingredient in 4 recipes, producing Campfire, Fire Charge, Soul Torch, and Torch.
Guides and tools that cover this
Frequently asked questions
How do you make Charcoal in Minecraft?
Charcoal comes out of a Furnace: put Oak Log in and let it cook.
What is the stack size of Charcoal?
Charcoal stacks to 64.
