Iron Ingots have been a staple ingredient in Minecraft's crafting recipes for several years, and they have been obtained the same way since their release in the early days of mining and crafting. However, the way players obtain Iron Ingots is about to change once the Caves & Cliffs update arrives later this year. This guide will explain how players will obtain iron ingots after the update and what other changes are being made to iron.
Iron is one of the most useful materials in Minecraft due to how many recipes it is used in. Iron is used to make tools at the start of a new world, as well it is used to make sheers and flint & steel. Players also need iron to craft important Redstone components, minecart rails, and even bases for beacons. Throughout a player's time in one world, they will need to mine a ton of iron, and the Caves & Cliffs update is going to make getting iron a little bit easier. Here's how players can get iron ingots in Minecraft 1.17.
Getting Iron Ingots In Minecraft 1.17
Before the Caves & Cliffs update, players would collect iron ore blocks when mining, and would then smelt the entire ore block in return for one iron ingot. Now, Mojang Studios has changed iron and gold to be more consistent with every other ore. Instead of dropping ore blocks, iron ore will now drop raw iron when broken. This also means that players can use pickaxes enchanted with Fortune to increase the number of raw iron that drops from ore blocks. The raw iron can then be smelted with a 1:1 return of iron ingots. However, players can use silk touch on iron ore to collect ore blocks which can still be smelted into iron ingots.
Much like diamonds, coal, and Redstone, players will collect a lot more materials if they wait to use a Fortune pickaxe on iron ore. While this is an enhanced way to manually mine iron, it's still not as fast as building iron golem farms. For less technical players, this is a huge upgrade from the pre-Caves & Cliffs mining, but it does mean that a player's inventory will fill up faster. It may be worth using a Silk Touch pickaxe initially and then a Fortune pickaxe once the player returns to the surface.
Minecraft is available on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch, and iOS.