What is branch mining in minecraft ? Branching is a ore mining technique that is most often used for farming diamonds in Minecraft, but it can be used for virtually any other cave resource.

Rather than leaving things up to chance and exploring caves in hopes you’ll run into ores, branch mining has you digging your own cave in a way that makes it easier to find what you need.

It has gotten its name from the shape you will be mining into the cave.

Using Branch Mining

To start your branch mine you will first have to get underground. Preferably you’re at the correct ore level for what you wish to find.

First, create a corridor for yourself going along either the X or Z axis that is 1 to 2 blocks wide and 2 blocks tall. Then, every 2 or even 3 blocks you will make a side corridor or a branch on both sides.

This way you can certainly reach an ore vein by creating a branch or simply find one in between branches.

This was is extremely efficient, because you don’t need to mine too much stone or waste time. It is quick and allows you to see all the information you need about the cave you’re in.

Variation – Tiered Branch Mining

This is a very simple variation of branch mining that you can do very easily.

You will be layering your mines one on top of the other. Each tunnel or branch should have a minimum 3 blocks distance from each other and the next mine on top of it should rest directly on top of it, in the very middle.

Variation – Pinwheel

There are some variations to branch mining that can be applied, some a bit more complex, but equally efficient.

One of these versions was named the pinwheel branch mining version. For this version, instead of using straight corridors, you actually make them “circle” toward each other.

Start with a room that is 10×10×8 blocks in size, with a 4×4 staircase in the middle. This is the very center of your mine and from it you will branch out.
Then, make 2×2 corridors from the center of every wall, like in the picture below

Then, once your corridors are ready, start mining one side of each of them, creating branches. You can do them clockwise or counter-clockwise.

You can then connect the different branches to make it easier to go from one to another.

In the final picture you can see how these should look like. Make sure to keep a distance of 2 or 3 blocks between corridors.

Most efficient mining methods in Minecraft

Never dig straight down

Digging straight down is the worst way for players to mine in Minecraft. This can cause lots of accidents, and players should not do this hence they have an increased chance of death.

Digging straight down can cause a player to end up in a lava pool. Lava tends to be located underground inside caves and ravines very commonly. When a player digs straight down, they have an increased chance of falling and drowning in one of these lava pools.

Players can also take fall damage when doing so. To avoid digging straight down, players should dig in a staircase fashion.

Branch mining

Branch mining is one of the best ways to mine in the game. Players dig their way down to bedrock, begin to search around there and start going up looking for goodies.

Since most of the rare resources are located at the bottom of the ground near bedrock and up, branch mining is a great method for players to find the rare items. For example, diamonds can be found near bedrock Y level 16.

When reaching bedrock, players will basically dig tunnels in several different directions looking to find resources, while still on the lookout for lava. Players will dig to their sides and make their way upward, making it in the shape of a branch.

Efficiency

Efficiency is an enchantment in Minecraft that will increase the speed at which players mine blocks. This will allow players to mine specific blocks faster and speed up the mining process for the player.

For example: obsidian takes a long time to mine. Using efficiency will shave off some of the mining time, allowing players to mine more blocks in a shorter time frame.

Best Places to Mine Diamonds in Minecraft 1.18

The best place to mine diamonds in Minecraft 1.18 is down near where bedrock spawns, but there is some question as to exactly how close players will want to get. Since diamonds will be more common the farther down players go, many may decide to branch mine all the way down in the Y -60 to Y -64 area to find the highest concentration of diamond deposits. The issue that arises with that method is that lava pools will be fairly common at these depths, and they will interrupt branches of a mine far more often.

Miners that want to be as time-efficient as possible will most likely be looking to create their branch mines at Y -53. This will make sure branches aren’t interrupted as often by lava, increasing the speed and coverage of the mining operation by allowing for longer contiguous branches.

While the diamond concentration won’t be as high, players will also not have to double-back as often to create new branches when old ones are cut off by pools of lava. However, while mining for diamonds down at these depths, players’ branches may still run into some of Minecraft’s new scenic cave biomes.

How to Mine Efficiently in Minecraft

Despite the fact that there are many tips and methods for mining in Minecraft, there are some other criteria you should always pay attention to. For example:

How good is your pickaxe: Is it the right tier to mine the block you want? Does it have any powerful enchantment to speed up the mining process like Efficiency?
Mining location is also extremely important since you don’t want to be surrounded by ocean, or worst, a sea of lava.
Negative effects such as Mining Fatigue from the Elder Guardian. This is super frustrating since it slows your mining speed by 37 times.

Above is information what is branch mining in minecraft.   Hopefully, through the above content, you have a more detailed understanding of what is branch mining in minecraft .Thank you for reading our post.