Minecraft: Here’s How To Make & Use Automatic Composter

Composters are extremely important in Minecraft, especially if you are oriented toward farming and are working toward creating an automated homestead. It allows players to convert certain organic items into bone meal. You can use various plant-based items, like seeds, saplings, flowers, and crops, as well as some food items, such as melons and pumpkins. When you put these items into the composter, it gradually fills up, and once it reaches a certain level, you can collect bone meal from it. But is there a way to make this process more automated? Yes, there is, and today we’re going to tell you how to set up your own automatic composter.

Editor’s Note: This guide was updated in November 2023 and reflects the most current state of the game.

What do you need to create an automatic composter?

Creating an automatic composter is not complicated at all, but it does require some materials, all of which are easy to acquire.

To create an automated composter, you need the following:

1. Two chests
2. two hoppers
3. One composter

Chests are something that all players have lying around. Hoppers are easily created with 5x Iron Ingots and 1x regular chest. Composters are also easily created by combining 7x slabs of any type of wood. If you’re still not clear on how to create both items, you can use our screenshots below!

You can also add a base to your automatic composter to make it more visually appealing, but this is not really a necessity. If you are thinking about adding base, you can use any type of material really.

Creating automatic composter: a step-by-step guide

Now that we’ve set up foundations and collected the items it’s time to build our composter.

1. Start by placing a single chest on the ground.
2. Place the hopper directly on top of the chest.
3. Place the composter on top of the hopper.
4. Place the second hopper on top of the composter.
5. Place the second chest on top of the second composter.
6. Load the chest with items you would wish to compost.
7. After some time in the last chest, bone meal should appear, which you can collect.

You will now that your automatic composter is working as intended if there are green particles emanating from it.

What can be added to a composter?

Technically, all types of plant-based items can be added to your composter, but not all items have the same chance of being composted. Items like beetroot seeds, hanging roots, kelp, leaves, saplings, seagrass, and sweet berries have around 30 % of being turned into a bone meal.

The chance goes up to 50% if you use items like cacti, melon slices, sugar cane, tall grass, and twisting wines. Adding apples, pumpkins, melons, mushrooms, potatoes, etc., have 65 % of turning into bone meal.

Items with the highest chance to turn into bone meal are definitely baked potatoes, bread, cookies, hay bales, pitcher plants, and torchflowers, so if you need a lot of bonemeal fast, I suggest adding those.

Meat and other similar items won’t result in bonemeal being created.

Composters also serve as job site blocks for farmers, so if you want to convert a villager to a farmer or create a new farmer from scratch, don’t be surprised if the villager interacts with it.

Have something to add? Let us know in the comments below!