Overview
Coal is fuel and light, and the first ore you will meet. One piece smelts 8 items in a furnace and crafts 4 torches with a stick, which covers the two things a new world needs most. Coal ore generates from bedrock all the way to the world height with a peak around Y 96, and it appears in large veins in mountainsides where it can be mined without a mine at all — which is why the first day usually ends with more coal than the player knows what to do with. Nine pieces compress into a Coal Block, which burns for 800 seconds and smelts 80 items, making it the most compact solid fuel in the game and the sensible way to store a surplus. Beyond fuel and torches, coal makes campfires and fire charges. It is not renewable, which is the one argument for Charcoal instead — but with veins as large as they are, no ordinary world ever runs out of coal. A first-day coal vein in a mountainside is worth stopping for, however keen you are to keep walking.
Fuelling furnaces at 8 items per piece, crafting torches 4 at a time, and building campfires and fire charges — the material every early base runs on.
Coal is a crafting material item in Minecraft Java Edition 1.21.4. Sixty-four fit in one inventory slot. You get it by killing Wither Skeleton.
It also turns up in chests in Ocean Ruins, Trail Ruins, and Igloo. Coal Ore is where it comes from, densest at about Y 96. The recipe calls for Block of Coal.
It is smelted from Coal Ore. Its main value is as a crafting ingredient: 4 recipes need it, Campfire, Fire Charge, Soul Torch and 1 more among them.
How to get it
Mine coal ore with any pickaxe for 1 coal, or 2 to 4 with Fortune III. Ore peaks around Y 96 and generates in exposed mountainsides, so a first-day surface trip usually supplies a full stack.
Tips
- Nine coal make a block that burns for 800 seconds; it is the most compact way to store fuel.
- One coal plus one stick makes 4 torches, so a stack of coal lights an entire mine system.
- Fortune III multiplies coal drops as well as ore drops, which is worth remembering on a mountainside vein.
- Charcoal from a tree farm does the same job renewably if a world's coal veins are inconveniently far away.
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
- Renewable
- Yes
- Category
- Materials
How to get it
Crafting Table
Shapeless recipe
Coal ×9
Furnace · 10s · 0.1 XP
Coal
Also works in: Blast Furnace
Furnace · 10s · 0.1 XP
Coal
Also works in: Blast Furnace
Dropped by
1 mobs drop Coal: Wither Skeleton. Looting raises the maximum on most of them.
Found in
Coal is in the loot tables of Ocean Ruins, Trail Ruins, and Igloo.
- Ocean Ruins — Scattered clusters of sunken buildings, in a sandstone warm-water variant and a stone cold-water variant.
- Trail Ruins — A buried settlement of terracotta, mud bricks and stripped logs, almost entirely underground, so it is easy to walk over one without noticing.
- Igloo — A small snow dome containing a bed, a crafting table, a furnace and a redstone torch on the floor.
Dropped by blocks
Mining Coal Ore and Deepslate Coal Ore drops Coal.
Used to craft
Coal is an ingredient in 5 recipes, producing Campfire, Block of Coal, Fire Charge, Soul Torch, and Torch.
Guides and tools that cover this
Frequently asked questions
How do you make Coal in Minecraft?
Coal is crafted from Block of Coal.
What is the stack size of Coal?
Coal stacks to 64.
