Minecraft is a grid-based survival and building game with great potential to express creativity. The game’s systems allow for lots of cool builds and mechanisms one of which is an infinite lava source. But the complexity doesn’t end just there you can build shockingly smart and impressive machines. Additionally, you can take it easy and focus just on aesthetics and your builds. No matter if you like building the cutest barn or the best and fastest farm there is something for everyone.
What is Lava in Minecraft, and what do you use it for?
Lava in Minecraft is a liquid that gas a few cores use for the progression of the game, while also standing as a danger to the player. It is the main component for obsidian which is required to progress through the game and beat the ender dragon. Additionally, it is used in some important crafting recipes like the enchantment table. The idea of making an infinite lava source to get infinite obsidian may cross the mind of many players.
This is because Minecraft lava is the best power source for smelting and minecart furnace-powered trains. So anyone that could acquire an infinite lava source would effectively never have to worry about wasting their hard-mined coal or resort to burning their wood. For perspective, one piece of coal which is the second best fuel source in the game can smelt just 8 blocks per piece. While lava can smelt up to 100 blocks making it by far the best fuel to use.
Where can you find Lava in Minecraft?
Minecraft’s lava can be found all over the world even n two different dimensions, the Overworld, and the Nether. In the Overworld, it can be found most commonly underground in caves or pockets with pools of lava. Some lava pockets can appear above ground but they are never too big. The closest thing to an infinite lava source can be found in the Nether in the form of giant lava lakes and pools. This can serve as a good source of lava but is not the ideal infinite lava source for you.
If you are in a pinch and need just one or two buckets of lava, have a village near your base. This may well be the best way to get those buckets
Can you craft lava in Minecraft?
Sadly lava in Minecraft is not craftable and is quite a finite resource, especially in the Overworld. It may be similar to water that it is a liquid and flows identically albeit slower. The biggest difference is that you can easily make an infinite water source while an infinite lava source is more challenging. Placing two water sources next to each other with one air block in between will result in that block always becoming water even when picked up by a bucket. Making an infinite water source, sadly lava is a bit trickier so this method doesn’t work. But luckily thanks to the recent introduction of dripstone the situation has changed.
How do you transport Lava in Minecraft?
Transporting lava in Minecraft is quite a hassle since you can only transport it with buckets that do not stack. This means that you can only carry an inventory’s worth of lava buckets at a time. This paired with the fact that in the Overworld lava is tough to find makes it quite a journey to gather large quantities. Making this one of the most hated jobs for anyone playing Minecraft.
Can you still make an infinite lava source in Minecraft in 2022?
Making an infinite lava source is something that was unavailable to players up until recently. The development that allowed this is the addition of dripstone in the 1.18 Caves and Cliffs update. Which completely changed the way people would look at the concept of an infinite lava source.
Getting Lava from the Nether Portal
The old go-to way to get lots of lava was to set up a Nether portal near your base and go in by yourself, walk down to the massive lava pools and grab lava like that. This way is very slow and takes a lot of effort, but there was no better alternative. Players who needed a lot of lava would optimize this system by implementing railways that would take minecart chests filled with lava through the portal. This method saved a lot of time from traveling to and from the nether but still required manually transferring each lava bucket from the minecart chests to your storage. Which led to lava’s reputation as a wasteful and inconvenient fuel source.
Using dripstone to renew Lava
Ever since the introduction of dripstone lava has gone from a niche power source to possibly the most popular. Not to mention its use in builds or as a component in other automated farms, you can never get enough. The reason for this is that dripstone has introduced a way to make Minecraft’s first legitimate infinite lava source. The possibility of this instantly excited the community as they jumped to build the best infinite lava source possible.
The community came up with one design that is very easy to build and it only requires one piece of dripstone, a cauldron, and lastly a lava bucket. The concept is to put the lava above the block from which the dripstone is hanging. Then place the cauldron under the dripstone with one block of space between them. This makes a fully automatic infinite lava source as the dripstone drips lava into the cauldron until it fills it up.
With many inventions of varying build complexity, they all ran into the same problem. That problem is the lack of an option to automatically pick up the lava from the cauldron and store it. Even though the system is not ideal it is much better than having to go all the way to the Nether to get your lava. Plus, you can make the farm as big as you want so it produces more lave faster.
