Charcoal

Charcoal is a player created fuel resource.

Charcoal
Temperature	1300
Seconds	40
Fuel

Creation

Charcoal is created in charcoal pits, which are chambers or sealed spaces where enclosed stacks of firewood are burned.

Required materials

Construction of a charcoal pit requires: firewood (cut using an axe), dry grass (harvested with a knife), and solid blocks to create an airtight shell.

Building a Basic Charcoal Pit

1. Place firewood in stacks in a square. Make sure each stack is completely filled with 32 pieces of firewood. (Players may choose to dig a pit, as shown in the graphic below, or place the stacks above ground.)
2. Create an airtight shell by enclosing the stacks in dirt blocks or any non-combustible block, but leave one block on top of the pit open.
3. Build a firepit directly on top of the accessible stack of firewood. The block info window, if you have it enabled, should show that the the firepit is actually called a 'charcoal pit' now.
4. Ignite the firepit with a firestarter or a torch.
5. Quickly seal the pit by placing one block on top of the firepit, completing the airtight shell. (Players have 30 seconds to seal the shell or the process will not work.)
6. After 30 seconds, smoke particles will begin drifting through the covering material, indicating that the charcoal making process is taking place.
7. When the pile stops smoking (18 game hours), the process is complete.
8. Remove the shell and collect the charcoal using bare hands or a shovel.

Dimensions and Considerations

• Attention: if the charcoal pile is not sealed within 30 seconds of ignition, or if there are empty spaces or partial firewood stacks inside the shell, no charcoal will be produced. Instead, you may hear distinct "burning" sounds coming from the pit. Quickly open the shell and extinguish the flames with buckets of water before the firewood burns to ash!
• The yield for each stack of 32 firewood is between 4 and 7 charcoal, the average yield of each stack is 5.5 charcoal.
• Charcoal pits can have more than one layer, and the firepit does not need to be on the top layer - it just needs to be ontop of a firewood pile anywhere inside the shell.
• Firewood up to 6 blocks away, in any direction, from the firepit will be made into charcoal. This means that the maximum size of any charcoal pit is a 13x13x13 cube, and the largest volume of firewood that can be processed in one pit is 13³-1 (2,196) blocks, with an average yield of 12,078 charcoal. Firewood outside of the firepit's range will not be processed, nor consumed; it remains untouched at the end of the process.
• As the distance to the firepit matters, that means that in order to ignite a maximum-size charcoal pit correctly, the firepit must be in the very center of the huge cube. It is technically possible to ignite the firepit there and finish building the full cube around it before the 30-second grace timer expires, but it is considered impractical and needlessly risky. Because of this, and the sheer time and effort required to procure and process over 17,000 log blocks, pretty much no one builds charcoal pits this large except for the novelty value of having done it once.
• The firepit used to ignite the charcoal pit does not require any additional fuel apart from the 4 pieces of firewood automatically input on creation.

Usage

Fuel

Charcoal is the first type of fuel capable of generating temperatures high enough (1300°C) to smelt metal ores such as Copper (1084°C). Charcoal can be used as fuel for the firepit in casting, in the bloomery, in the cementation furnace when making steel, and in the forge when smithing.

In the bloomery, charcoal can be used to smelt items at a higher temperature. For example, quartz has a required temperature of 1350°C, yet charcoal can still be used as the fuel to smelt it.

Pigment

Charcoal can be used as the Carbon Black pigment when labeling chests and signs.

Cave art

Charcoal can be used to draw cave art on full stone or wooden blocks.

Drawing cave art is done by having charcoal in hand, holding 'Ctrl' and pressing the right mouse button.

The cave art to be drawn can be chosen by having charcoal in hand, looking at a cave art viable block and pressing 'F'.

Cave art can be removed by using a watering can.

Storage

Charcoal stacks to 64, may be carried in player inventory, or stored in containers.