In Minecraft, there are not only hot biomes like deserts or savannas, but also snow-covered areas where you can use snow as a valuable resource. Instead of laboriously working with a shovel, we show you how to produce infinite snowballs with an automatic snow farm. Ideal for building projects, snowball fights, or battling foes!
Minecraft Snow Facts: Everything You Need to Know
Just like in the real world, snow is primarily found in cold areas. There, it is either already part of the terrain or forms when it snows. This depends on the respective temperature of the biome. Snow doesn’t fall everywhere and is therefore a limited resource.
Minecraft Snow Biomes: Where You Can Naturally Find Snow
Snow was first introduced in the Alpha, but while there used to be a 1 in 4 chance of getting a so-called “winter world,” there are now various and numerous biomes within a Minecraft world that contain snow. As you explore your world, you’ll stumble upon them sooner or later. Often, they are even close to each other, as biomes are now also determined by temperatures.
Biomes with Snow:
- Snowy Taiga
- Snowy Plains
- Ice Spikes Tundra
- Snowy Beach
- Mountain Grove
- Snowy Slopes
- Jagged Peaks
- Frozen Peaks
Additionally, there are some cold biomes where it snows at a certain height. These include windswept biomes, taiga, and pine forests. If you’re looking for snow, be sure to check out one of the biomes mentioned!
Minecraft Snow Types: What Types of Snow Exist?
In these areas, you’ll most often find snow as a thin layer over a grass block or other natural blocks. If you break these with a shovel or your fist, they turn into snowballs. Snowballs can only be stacked up to 16. If you craft 4 together, you get a snow block. You can also throw snowballs, but they don’t deal much damage.
You’re probably wondering how you can collect regular snow. Well, either use a shovel with Silk Touch or use three snow blocks to make 6 snow layers. These can now also be stacked on top of each other. 8 snow layers make a full snow block, which can also be harvested with Silk Touch. Sometimes, you can also find whole snow blocks in some biomes.
With two snow blocks and a pumpkin, you can also summon a great mob, which we need for the automatic snow farm.
Lastly, there is a relatively new snow block that you might have come across in some steep biomes. It’s inconspicuous but very dangerous. We’re talking about powder snow. It differs only slightly from regular snow blocks but causes you to sink in and slowly freeze. Not a pleasant experience! Use leather boots to walk over it. Powder snow is not a solid block and can only be collected with a bucket.
Building a Minecraft Snow Farm: Guide to a Semi-Automatic Snow Farm
The behavior of snow between Java and Bedrock is unfortunately a bit different, as in Java, snow that is broken by a piston cannot turn into a snowball. In Bedrock, this is still possible. Therefore, a completely automatic farm in the normal Java edition is currently (as of October 2024) not possible.
However, there are still cool and practical designs! You just need to break the snow with a shovel. We make use of a snow golem. When this golem walks over a block, it leaves behind a layer of snow. We can break this either for snowballs or snow layers.
Biomes and their build height: Y≈64 for Plains, Sunflower Plains, Swamp, and Beach Y≈124 for Mushroom Fields and Coasts Y≈154 for Jungle Y≈184 for Savanna Plateau Y≈244 for Windswept Savanna
Building Materials
- Chest
- Hopper
- Minecart with Hopper
- Rail
- 4 Slabs
- Full Building Blocks
- Shovel (preferably enchanted)
Minecraft Snow Farm Building Guide: Step by Step
First, we need to take care of the collection mechanism. This works a bit differently with the snow farm because snow golems cannot create snow on hoppers. Therefore, we need to use a different method that works similarly.
First, build a regular chest with a hopper. Place a rail on the hopper with a shift-click, and on top of that, place a minecart with hopper. Above this goes a full block. This allows an item to pass through the minecart with hopper into the hopper and then into the chest.
Afterwards, you can build a kind of platform to make the snow farm look a bit nicer, but you don’t necessarily have to. We enclosed the chest and the hopper mechanism with andesite.
The important thing is to ensure that the snow golem stays in place later and all snowballs are collected. Use slabs and blocks for this. This allows you to break the snow yourself, but nothing falls aside, and the golem cannot escape. Build the snow golem using two snow blocks and a carved pumpkin in the middle of the blocks. Also, place a block above the iron golem so it doesn’t melt in the sun.
Now the farm is actually ready! The block under which the hopper mechanism was built should now be covered with a snow layer. Use a shovel and aim at the side of the snow so you don’t accidentally hit the golem. Just hold down the mouse button and off you go!
Even with a normal and unenchanted iron shovel, we were able to break many blocks. The hopper will probably not keep up with collecting all the snowballs. You rarely need to use the snow farm longer than a few minutes or expand the storage system with more chests and hoppers. Also, use the F3 and T trick we described in our automatic fish farm. This reloads your texture pack and allows you to release the mouse button.
Conclusion: How to Build an Effective Snow Farm in Minecraft
Snow is a cool resource that you can use not only for building but also for wild snowball fights. A farm is simple to build and provides you with hundreds of snowballs in minutes! Snow golems are very underrated and should definitely be built more often. Produce endless snowballs for building projects or snowball fights on your own server. Rent your Minecraft server and let it snow!
