Last updated: 4 July 2026

How to Find Netherite in Minecraft

Netherite is Minecraft's strongest material — tougher than diamond, immune to fire and lava, and it floats instead of sinking when dropped. Getting it requires mining Ancient Debris in the Nether, smelting it into Netherite Scrap, crafting Netherite Ingots, and then upgrading your diamond gear at a Smithing Table. This guide covers the fastest mining methods, the exact Y-level that matters, the full crafting chain, and where to find the Smithing Template you need.

01What You Need Before Heading to the Nether

Netherite upgrades every stat on your diamond gear: higher durability, better damage and armor toughness, complete immunity to fire and lava damage (the item itself will not burn), and a degree of knockback resistance. The upgrade preserves all existing enchantments — you do not need to re-enchant.

Ancient Debris requires a diamond or netherite pickaxe to mine. An iron or lower pickaxe will hit it and produce nothing. You also need to be in the Nether — Ancient Debris has no Overworld equivalent.

Shopping list before mining:

• Diamond pickaxe (at least) — iron will not work on Ancient Debris.
• Fire Resistance potions — bed mining and strip mining both risk exposing lava at Y=15; fire immunity turns a lethal pocket into a minor inconvenience.
• 10–20 beds if you are using the bed mining method — cheap to craft and dramatically faster than alternatives.
• Food and armor — Nether Fortresses and Bastion Remnants lie between you and your mining spot.
• Note your Nether portal coordinates before venturing deep — getting lost in the Nether is easy.

02Best Y-Level: Mine at Y=15–16

Ancient Debris spawns between Y=8 and Y=119 in the Nether but is extremely rare. Two independent cluster attempts happen per chunk: the main cluster (0–3 blocks, triangle distribution from Y=8 to Y=24) and a sparse secondary scatter (0–2 blocks, uniform from Y=8 to Y=119). Both overlap most heavily near Y=15 to Y=16, making that band the optimal target — the Minecraft Wiki reports an average of roughly 1.65 Ancient Debris blocks per chunk at this level, with a normal maximum of 5.

Crucially, Ancient Debris almost never spawns exposed to air. The game explicitly attempts to place it fully encased in Netherrack or other Nether blocks. In rare cases, later generation processes such as cave carving can expose a piece, but you cannot rely on spotting it passively — active mining or explosions are required to locate it reliably.

Check your coordinates (F3 in Java; the coordinates display in Bedrock settings) and aim for Y=15 to Y=16 — the Minecraft Wiki confirms Y=16 as the statistical peak, though the difference from Y=15 is marginal and both are far better than anything above Y=20. One block below Y=8 produces nothing; 10 blocks above Y=24 and spawn density drops noticeably.

03Three Mining Methods — Ranked by Speed

1. Bed Mining (Fastest)

Beds explode when you try to sleep in them in the Nether — and Ancient Debris is blast resistant, so it survives the explosion while the surrounding Netherrack clears away. This makes beds a highly efficient prospecting tool at negligible cost.

How to bed mine at Y=15:

1. Dig a short tunnel into a Netherrack wall at Y=15.
2. Stand back and surround yourself on all exposed sides with a non-flammable, blast-resistant block — cobblestone works well. Leave only the wall ahead of you open.
3. Place a bed against the far wall of the tunnel (the face you want to clear).
4. Crouch behind your shield block and right-click the bed. The explosion clears roughly a 5-block sphere of Netherrack. Any Ancient Debris in that sphere will be floating in the open space — collect it.
5. Patch any ceiling or floor damage, step forward, and repeat.

Keep Fire Resistance active throughout — the blast can expose lava pockets directly below. Carry enough beds to cover a long session (one bed clears 5–6 blocks of progress).

2. Strip Mining (No Consumables Required)

Dig a straight tunnel at Y=15 in one direction. Every 2–3 blocks, branch off perpendicular tunnels in both directions to expose fresh Netherrack faces. Ancient Debris embedded in those faces becomes visible and mineable. Slower than bed mining but costs nothing beyond pickaxe durability.

3. TNT Mining (Resource-Intensive)

Strip a Y=15 tunnel, place TNT every 3–4 blocks along it, light the chain and step back. TNT clears Netherrack in bulk and, like beds, leaves Ancient Debris intact. The downside is cost: TNT requires gunpowder (from Creepers) and sand — practical only if you already run a Creeper farm.

04The Crafting Chain: Scrap to Ingot

Getting from Ancient Debris to wearable netherite takes three steps:

1. Smelt Ancient Debris in a Furnace or Blast Furnace. Each block yields exactly one Netherite Scrap. A Blast Furnace processes twice as fast — use it if you have one.
2. Combine 4 Netherite Scraps + 4 Gold Ingots in a crafting table to make one Netherite Ingot. The arrangement in the grid does not matter — place them anywhere. This is the only recipe and it takes both scrap and gold.
3. Upgrade at a Smithing Table using your Netherite Ingot, diamond item, and a Netherite Upgrade Smithing Template (see below).

How much Ancient Debris do you need? A full armor set (helmet, chestplate, leggings, boots) plus sword and pickaxe requires 6 Netherite Ingots — that is 24 Ancient Debris blocks and 24 Gold Ingots in total. Budget for multiple sessions. Gold is plentiful in the Nether (Bastion chests, Nether Gold Ore at the same Y-levels) so it rarely becomes a bottleneck.

05Getting the Netherite Upgrade Smithing Template

Since the 1.20 update (Trails & Tales), both Java and Bedrock require a Netherite Upgrade Smithing Template to use the Smithing Table. Without it, the upgrade slot will not accept your ingot.

The template is found exclusively in Bastion Remnants — the large dark-stone fortress structures in the Nether (all Nether biomes except Basalt Deltas). The drop chance depends on Bastion type:

• Treasure Room Bastion — the inner chest near the lava pool has a 100% chance of containing a Netherite Upgrade Smithing Template. This is the reliable source — aim for one of these.
• Bridge, Hoglin Stables, Housing Unit Bastions — their chests each have roughly a 10% chance per chest. Viable as a bonus find, not a primary strategy.

Once you have one template, you can duplicate it at a crafting table: place the template in the center, fill the 8 surrounding slots with 7 Diamonds and 1 Netherrack block (Netherrack is the material that matches Ancient Debris' base block). The recipe yields 2 templates. Duplicate before using any template if you plan to upgrade multiple pieces.

06Upgrading at the Smithing Table

With ingots and a template ready, the upgrade takes seconds:

1. Open the Smithing Table — the three-slot interface has a template slot (left), base item slot (center) and material slot (right).
2. Place the Netherite Upgrade Smithing Template in the left slot.
3. Place the diamond item you want to upgrade in the center slot.
4. Place a Netherite Ingot in the right slot.
5. Take the resulting Netherite item from the output. Enchantments, custom name and remaining durability all carry over — there is no XP cost and no prior work penalty.

Each item requires its own ingot and its own template. Prioritize what to upgrade first:

• Chestplate first — provides the most armor points of any single piece.
• Pickaxe second — Netherite pickaxe durability (2031 uses) greatly exceeds diamond (1561 uses), which matters during extended mining sessions.
• Sword next — Netherite adds +1 attack damage over diamond and provides knockback resistance, making combat noticeably more stable.
• Helmet and leggings last — complete the set for maximum armor value.