Simple Charcoal Pit

An immersive way to make charcoal in Minecraft. Stack logs into a tightly packed pit, bury them under non-flammable blocks, and set the pile alight. A sealed, burning pit slowly smolders the logs into charcoal while venting smoke from the top.

Notice: This mod was made using AI

How it works

1. Build the pit — Pack logs (#minecraft:logs) into a hole or stack on the ground.
2. Cover it up — Bury every log under non-flammable, solid blocks (dirt, stone, sand, gravel, etc.). Every face of every log must touch either another log or a cover block.
3. Light it — Right-click a log with flint and steel or a fire charge. Fire spreads through the touching pile.
4. Wait — Sealed logs smolder and vent smoke from the top. Each finished log becomes a Charcoal Pile that drops 1–2 charcoal when dug out (fastest with a shovel; Fortune boosts drops like coal ore).

Uncovered burning logs burn away to nothing after a short time — seal the pit before the fire spreads too far.

Balance

• About 1–2 charcoal per log (~1.5 average), on par with a furnace
• No fuel required; the whole pile cooks in parallel
• Trade-off: build effort, flint-and-steel durability, real-time wait, and risk of losing unsealed logs
• Cook time scales with pit size: charringTime + charringTimePerLog × (logs − 1)

| Pit size | Logs | Approx. cook time |
| -------- | ---- | ----------------- |
| 2×2×2 | 8 | ~95s |
| 3×3×3 | 27 | ~190s |
| 5×5×5 | 125 | ~11 min |

Charcoal can be crafted into a Block of Charcoal for storage (9 charcoal ↔ block), like vanilla coal blocks.

Configuration

File: config/simplecharcoalpit-common.toml

| Option | Default | Description |
| ------ | ------- | ----------- |
| charringTime | 1200 | Base ticks for a single-log pit |
| charringTimePerLog | 100 | Extra ticks per additional log |
| burnoutTime | 600 | Ticks before an exposed log burns away |
| requireSturdyCover | true | Only full solid faces count as cover |

Requirements

• Minecraft 1.21.1
• NeoForge 21.1.233+

Links

• GitHub
• Report issues