Stardew Valley is a great game to play when you want to kick back and relax. Taking care of animals, spending time with the villagers, growing your crops, the whole lot. But sometimes, automatizing certain processes can get a bit difficult. Most of these recipes end up requiring Stardew Valley coal.
Stardew Valley coal is not exactly an elusive material. In fact, it’s surprisingly easy to get. So easy that one forgets all the different ways to get it – some weird example of choice overload.
Luckily, we’ve put together a guide that answers questions such as how to get coal in Stardew Valley as well as explains the basics of Stardew Valley coal farming. Keep reading to find the answer to all of your questions about Stardew Valley coal!
How do you get coal in Stardew Valley? All the different ways to get coal
As we’ve already stated before, there are a bunch of different ways to get coal in Stardew Valley.
The most common way to find coal is through mining rocks anywhere in the game. Whether you’re in the Mines or running around town, breaking a rock always has a chance to give you coal. Of course, your daily luck and profession are also part of the equation.
Speaking of the Mines, certain floors will already have mine carts full of coal on them. Be sure to collect those when you come across them, and keep in mind that this only works for a single mine cart once.
Breaking open geodes, digging around, panning, and killing certain enemies such as the dust sprite or stone golems are all pretty solid ways of gathering coal. There are also more interesting ways to gather coal such as fruit trees and trains.
What’s the fastest way to get coal?
One of the fastest ways to get coal is by farming dust sprites. You can find these cute little monsters on floors 41-79 of the Mines – yet another reason to advance the Mines as soon as possible.
Killing a dust sprite gives you a 50% chance of receiving coal. Another useful item you can get from killing these enemies is the Burglar’s Ring. By completing monster eradication goals, you can get the ring as a reward from the Adventurer’s Guild by killing dust sprites.
Equipping this ring gives monsters a great chance of dropping loot. This, in turn, makes it even easier for you to get more coal by killing more sprites. Overall, it’s a job worth doing if you really want to farm Stardew Valley coal as fast as possible.
Generally, using the elevator is very useful when trying to gather coal in Stardew Valley. Moving from floors 45 to 55 to 65 and back is a great way to farm coal quickly and effectively.
Can you craft coal in Stardew Valley?
Coal is a base resource, which means it technically can’t be crafted in the traditional sense. There are no materials you can combine together to make coal.
However, there is an item in the game that can turn wood into coal by burning it – the Charcoal Kiln.
All you have to do is place 10 pieces of wood into the kiln. After around 30 in-game minutes, you should receive 1 coal. Every 10 pieces of wood turn into 1 coal, so keep that in mind when gathering wood to burn.
There are three ways to obtain a Charcoal Kiln. The easier (or harder?) two ways to go about it are to simply complete the Construction Bundle in the Crafts Room or the Sticky Bundle in the Crafts Room (Remixed).
The inarguably better way to obtain a Charcoal Kiln is to simply craft it.
How do you make a Charcoal Kiln?
We’ll start by detailing where you can obtain the recipe for this piece of equipment. Once you reach Level 4 Foraging, you obtain the recipe for the Charcoal Kiln.
From there, all it takes is gathering all the materials you need to craft it. You need 20 pieces of wood and 2 copper bars.
The wood is easy to get, as your farm will usually be full of wood. If not, that means you’ve likely cleared up all the wood on your farm and have an abundance of it anyway. Regardless, gathering up 20 wood shouldn’t be too hard.
The more difficult part is gathering the materials for the copper bar. To create a copper bar, you must smelt 5 pieces of copper ore, which you obtain from copper nodes in the Mines (floors 2-39). Placing 10 pieces in the furnace will give you 2 pieces of copper in around 30 in-game minutes. Ironically, you also need 2 pieces of coal for this to work.
Once you’ve got all the requisite materials, head to the crafting menu and create your new Charcoal Kiln!
Where can you farm coal in Stardew Valley?
We’ve already mentioned that you can farm coal on levels 41-79 of the Mines. Obviously, this involves killing dust sprites, so it improves your combat skill as well!
However, this isn’t the only place to farm coal. In fact, you can mine coal on any level of the Mines. You just have to break every rock out there for the small chance of receiving a few pieces of coal. It’s just not worth using this method for farming Stardew Valley coal in the long run.
Another method you can try out is using crab pots. When your crab pots catch trash, you can put it in the Recycling Machine. Most forms of trash will end up giving you either coal or wood which you can turn into coal using the Charcoal Kiln. This adds the beach to the list of places where you can passively farm coal.
You can also find coal in Robin’s shop, albeit in a different form than you’re expecting. Buying wood from Robin and feeding it to the Charcoal Kiln will give you a decent amount of coal. Unfortunately, this method isn’t too profitable, so it’s not the best choice.
Does coal have any use in tailoring?
To explain the function coal has in tailoring, we’ll first delve a little bit more into how the Sewing Machine works. Essentially, the Sewing Machine has a feed and a spool. Usually, you’ll put some cloth or a dyeable clothing item into the feed.
Placing coal into the spool will let you make a shirt when you combine it with some cloth. Alternatively, when you place coal into the spool with a dyeable clothing item into the feed, you’ll end up using the coal as black dye. It’s a great way to dye your clothing!
Is Stardew Valley coal good for gifting?
Now, you may think that nobody in Stardew Valley would ever want to receive some coal as a gift. And you’d be right! Mostly.
To no one’s surprise, Clint actually gives you the best reaction when you gift him coal. When we say the best reaction, of course, we mean a neutral reaction. On the opposite end of the spectrum, you have Sam, who absolutely hates coal. Don’t even think about gifting him coal.
The other villagers also have a strong dislike for coal, so you should avoid giving them any.
The bottom line is that Stardew Valley coal is absolutely not a good gift for any of the villagers.
What recipes is Coal used for?
You can use coal for a variety of purposes, and we’ll list some examples below.
Bee House
If you’re interested in beekeeping, you better get on collecting that coal. You need 8 pieces to craft a bee house, along with 40 wood, 1 iron bar, and some maple syrup.
Preserves Jar
One of the most profitable pieces of equipment you can get. Again, you only need 8 pieces of coal to craft it. You’ll also need 50 wood and 40 stone, though.
Scarecrow
Having a scarecrow is an integral part of any Stardew Valley farm. Using a piece of coal, 50 wood, and 20 fiber, you can keep your crops safe from crows.
Braziers
There is four types of braziers in the game, each involving different ingredients. One consistency, though, is coal. You only need 1 piece of coal for each type of brazier, so don’t worry too much about farming coal for this recipe.
Seed Maker
Seed Makers are important for expanding your farm and growing crops without buying any more from the shop. You need 10 coal, 25 wood, and 1 gold bar for this recipe.
Is coal part of any quests in Stardew Valley?
You can look to the “Help Wanted” quests for some easy money if you’re eager to practice gathering coal. Clint will sometimes ask the player to gather some coal for him to inspect. Note that the coal you give him needs to be coal that you gathered after you’ve accepted the quest.
The “Smelting” story quest also involves coal. Although it’s not an item that anyone is asking for, you need 1 piece of coal to smelt 5 copper ores into a copper bar. This, in turn, allows you to complete the quest and get it out of your journal.
Other than that, coal isn’t that big of a deal when it comes to Stardew Valley quests.
