Minecraft is an extremely popular game among people of all ages as it provides a unique outlet for creativity and imagination. One of the most difficult parts of the game is knowing how to craft complex materials like concrete. Thankfully, I spent my foundational years playing this game and am now here to provide you with the recipes you are looking for.
To craft concrete in Minecraft you have to create concrete powder using sand, gravel, and dye, then you have to place a block of concrete powder next to flowing water or a source block. This will instantly harden your concrete and you are then free to build.
This recipe is a simple one, but there are more exact instructions as to how to create the powder, what can and cannot harden concrete, and how to use your concrete blocks. Read on to learn all the tips for concrete crafting in Minecraft.
Table of Contents
The Concrete Powder Recipe
Minecraft has many different versions and I will be sharing the concrete powder from the most recent update: Minecraft version 1.16.
Creating concrete powder is quite simple as there is no specific placement for your components on the crafting table- as long as you have them all, you are good to go!
The components you need are:
- Four blocks of Sand
- Four blocks of Gravel
- One block of any dye
Once you have the materials listed above, open up your crafting table and set all nine components on the table in any order. This recipe will make 8 blocks of concrete powder that you can harden at any time.
My favorite part about concrete in Minecraft is that you can use any dye to color your powder, meaning your building project can be completely customized!
Dye options in Minecraft are: red, orange, yellow, green, lime, cyan, light blue, blue, purple, magenta, pink, brown, black, grey, light grey, or white. You can obtain dyes by crafting, trading, or smelting.
Hardening Your Concrete
Now that you have your blocks of concrete powder, it is time to harden them into concrete building blocks!
This is an extremely easy process, and you will almost certainly have the materials needed to harden your powder into concrete.
The materials you need are:
- Concrete powder
- Water (flowing or from a source block)
To harden your concrete, place your water and set your concrete powder next to it. That is all you have to do! Now, you have a completely customized block of concrete to build with!
One thing to note is that you can only harden concrete powder with flowing water or a source block. Concrete is not formed through contact with a cauldron, rain, or a water bottle, so be sure to have a water block or be by a body of water when you want to craft your concrete.
Using Concrete Blocks
Concrete blocks can be used for anything you can think of, from buildings to moats to roads, concrete is an extremely useful material to craft with.
Concrete has a hardness of 1.8 and a blast resistance of 1.8 as well. This means it is harder than stone (another popular building material) but has a blast resistance that is much lower. If you are building for function and not fashion, I would suggest using stone to solidify your structure.
When it comes to colorful crafting materials, concrete is the way to go.
First, it is extremely easy to make, as gravel, sand, and dye are materials found in abundance.
Second, it is the best of both worlds for strong and colorful building material. The other two most colorful building materials are terracotta and wool- both of which have large disadvantages.
Terracotta is quite a bit stronger than concrete, with concrete having a hardness and blast resistance of 1.8 and terracotta having a hardness of 1.25 and a blast resistance of 4.2.
However, terracotta will not provide you with the color that concrete does. Terracotta, like concrete, has the ability to be dyed all 16 dye colors, but dyed terracotta is dull and earthy. Dyed concrete is just as vibrant as wool.
Speaking of wool, concrete is an obvious choice over wool when it comes to building. The hardness and blast resistance of wool is only 0.8– a clear disadvantage to the 1.8 hardness and blast resistance of wool.
You might be saying “I use wool for the vibrancy, not the strength!” but this is not an issue with concrete– unlike terracotta, dyed concrete holds just as much pure color as wool, but holds none of the weakness or flammability.
Helpful Tips
Now that you know how to craft concrete in Minecraft and why you should use it rather than other colorful materials, I want to share some tips about this awesome material.
- An important thing to note about concrete is how it is broken. Unlike wool, wood, and other materials, it can not be broken by anything if you want to collect it. You have to break concrete with a pickaxe or no collection blocks will pop up. If you want to preserve or move your concrete from one location to another, be sure to use a pickaxe to break it.
- The breaking time of a concrete block is 9 seconds, which is relatively long compared to wood (1.45), stone (0.7), and iron (0.45), so be sure to break your blocks before night comes, or you may get stuck in a situation you don’t want to be in.
- Concrete is stackable for up to 64 blocks of varying colors.
- Concrete is not flammable, even when dropped in lava. A lava moat around your Minecraft structure is a great and unique feature to have- thankfully, it is possible through the use of concrete.
- Concrete is not transparent or luminant, so it is best used for building walls, staircases, and floors.
- The Concrete powder will fall like sand and dirt when it has nothing placed under it, but hardened concrete will stay in place.
- Though lava is not water, it is a liquid, so concrete powder will harden into concrete when placed in lava– a useful thing to know when trying to travel over a lake or river of lava!
Hopefully you’ll be able to use these recipes, tips, and tricks about Minecraft concrete in your next gaming session- Happy crafting!
