What is Charcoal in Minecraft?
Charcoal is a very useful item in Minecraft that works almost exactly like coal. It is a fantastic fuel source for furnaces and is essential for crafting torches to light up your world. The great thing about charcoal is that you can make it yourself using wood, which is a renewable resource you can find everywhere. This means that even if you cannot find any coal ore while mining, you can still smelt your ores, cook your food, and keep the monsters away by making charcoal. It looks so similar to coal that it even uses the same texture in your inventory.
How to get Charcoal in Minecraft
The only way to get charcoal is by smelting wood logs in a furnace. It is important to use regular logs, not wood planks or stripped logs. You can use any type of wood log, like oak, birch, or spruce. Simply place the log in the top slot of a furnace and a fuel source like wood planks or another piece of coal in the bottom slot. After a few seconds, one piece of charcoal will be created. Since you can always grow more trees, you can create an infinite supply of charcoal, making it a very reliable fuel source for your base, especially in the early game before you have found large veins of coal.
How to use Charcoal in Minecraft
You can use charcoal in all the same ways you would use regular coal, with one small exception. Its main use is as a fuel in a furnace, smoker, or blast furnace. One piece of charcoal will smelt eight items, just like coal. Its other most important use is for crafting torches. Combine one piece of charcoal and one stick in a crafting grid to make four torches. You can also use charcoal to craft a campfire or a fire charge. The only thing you cannot do with charcoal that you can do with coal is craft it into a block. There is no block of charcoal in the game.
How to craft Charcoal in Minecraft
Furnace
