Whether you are looking to expedite your mining expeditions or create a sinister trap for your friends, TNT is an excellent Minecraft block for both utility and destruction. You can occasionally find TNT in Buried Treasure or the Loot Chests that spawn in Shipwrecks. This explosive block also generates in Desert Pyramids and Woodland Mansions, but they are hidden and generally connected to a trap mechanism. Therefore, due to the varying RNG of finding TNT in Chests or the high risk of extracting them from naturally generated traps, the best way to get TNT in Minecraft is by crafting it using specific materials.
Crafting Minecraft TNT
To craft TNT in Minecraft, you will need Sand and Gunpowder. Sand is not hard to come by, as you can find it near rivers, oceans, and other bodies of water. The Deserts provide an almost infinite supply of Sand, and the Badlands also offers an abundance of Red Sand. Both normal and Red Sand can be used for TNT.
The next resource, Gunpowder, requires more effort to obtain since it is primarily acquired by hunting down certain hostile mobs. More specifically, Gunpowder drops from slain Creepers, Witches, and Ghasts of the Nether. Occasionally, you might encounter a Wandering Trader selling Gunpowder in exchange for Emeralds. The Minecraft Wiki additionally states that you can find Gunpowder as Chest Loot within Dungeons, Desert Temples, Shipwrecks, and Woodland Mansions. However, out of all the available sources for these materials, Creepers are the most abundant and the most manageable to farm. There are many “Creeper Farms” that industrious players have created over the years, but finding a natural Creeper Spawner is the most effortless means of farming this creature.
Once you have five stacks of Gunpowder and four blocks of Sand, place the Gunpowder on a 3×3 crafting grid in a way identical to the “5-dotted side” of a dice. Place the Sand in the remaining slots, and the result will be a block of Minecraft TNT. Remember that TNT must be detonated before it can explode. Priming sources include Flint and Steel, a Redstone signal, or flaming projectiles, such as the flame arrow of a Bow.
Minecraft is available on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox One X|S, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, Android, and iOS.
