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farms[difficulty:beginner][version:26.3]

Ice farm in Minecraft: how water freezes, a simple design, and turning ice into packed and blue ice

Ice is renewable: water in a snowy biome freezes on its own if three conditions are met. Here are the exact freezing rules, a simple grid farm that freezes fast, how to harvest it, and the crafting chain to packed and blue ice for the fastest boat roads in the game.

David Riperson4 min read
A grid of frozen water pools in a snowy Minecraft biome used as an ice farm

Blue ice makes the fastest boat roads in Minecraft, and it takes 81 ice to make one block. Collecting that much from frozen lakes by hand is slow. An ice farm lets the game freeze the water for you while you do something else.

RateDepends on pool size and how long the chunk stays loaded
XP levelNone
Build time15 minutes to build
DifficultyBeginner

How water freezes

A water source block turns into ice on its own when all of these are true:

  • It is in a snowy biome (a cold biome where snow falls, such as snowy plains, snowy taiga, ice spikes or frozen river). Ice does not form in cold ocean, deep cold ocean or deep frozen ocean biomes.
  • It is open to the sky directly above.
  • The block light inside the water is below 10. Sunlight does not count; torches and lanterns do.
  • It has at least one horizontally adjacent block that is not water.

That last rule is the one that shapes the farm: water in the middle of a big lake freezes slowly because it has water on every side. A pattern with lots of edges freezes much faster.

Ice melts when block light right next to it is above 11. Again, sunlight is ignored: only your own light sources melt it.

A simple ice farm

  1. Pick a snowy biome. Snowy plains is ideal: flat and easy to build on.
  2. Dig a checkerboard of 1x1 water holes, one block deep, with solid blocks between them. Every water block then has non-water neighbors on all four sides, the best case for freezing.
  3. Fill each hole with a water source. Make a small infinite water source nearby (a 2x2 pool) to refill your bucket.
  4. Keep it dark at night and unlit. No torches near the pools. Light up the surroundings far enough away to stop mobs, or fence the area.
  5. Stay in range. Freezing runs on random ticks, so the chunk must be loaded. Work nearby or AFK close to the farm.

A field of a few dozen holes produces a steady supply of ice while you build elsewhere in the area.

Harvesting

  • With Silk Touch: mining ice with a Silk Touch tool gives you the ice block. The hole is left empty, so refill it with a water bucket.
  • Without Silk Touch: ice drops nothing and turns back into water if there is a block under it. That resets the hole for free, but you get no ice.

So the loop is: Silk Touch pickaxe for collecting, water bucket for refilling. A pickaxe with Efficiency breaks ice almost instantly.

Frost Walker is not a farm. Frost Walker boots turn water into frosted ice, which melts again and cannot be collected. It is a movement enchantment, not a source of ice.

From ice to blue ice

Block Recipe Ice needed Notes
Ice Natural freezing 1 Melts near light
Packed ice 9 ice in a 3x3 grid 9 Never melts
Blue ice 9 packed ice in a 3x3 grid 81 Never melts, fastest boat surface

Neither crafting step can be reversed, so only craft what you need.

From ice to blue ice: one ice, packed ice from nine ice, blue ice from 81 ice; mine with Silk Touch and refill with water Image: SyntaxMine, made from Minecraft's own textures.

Shortcuts that skip the farm

  • Ice spikes biomes are made of packed ice. Mining the spikes with Silk Touch gives you packed ice directly, already 9 ice each.
  • Icebergs in frozen oceans contain packed ice and some blue ice.
  • Wandering traders sometimes sell packed or blue ice.
  • Ice caves in 26.4 are built from packed ice and calcite, a new underground source once 26.4 releases. See how to find ice caves.
  • Packed ice bricks in 26.4: four packed ice craft into packed ice bricks, with slabs, stairs, walls and a chiseled block, and unlike packed ice they are not slippery. They arrived in 26.4 Snapshot 5.

What to build with it

The classic use is a Nether ice road: blue ice under a boat in a two-wide tunnel, which moves faster than an elytra on flat ground. Pair it with the Nether portal calculator to line your Nether hubs up with your Overworld bases.

Frequently asked questions

How do you farm ice in Minecraft?

Make a checkerboard of 1x1 water sources in a snowy biome, open to the sky and away from torches. They freeze on their own; collect the ice with Silk Touch and refill with a water bucket.

Why won't my water freeze?

The biome may not be snowy, the water may be under a block or near a light source, or it may have water on all four sides.

How much ice do you need for blue ice?

81: 9 ice make one packed ice, and 9 packed ice make one blue ice.

Does ice melt in sunlight?

No. Only block light above 11, from torches and other light sources, melts ice.

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