There are 2 ingredients that you can use to make Black Dye in Minecraft. You only need 1 of them, however, so you should seek out the one that’s easier to obtain. Just get ready to do some swimming.
Table Of Contents
What You Need to Make Black Dye
The most common ingredient for making Black Dye is Ink Sacs. Just put an Ink Sac on any crafting grid to get the darkly-colored dye you desire. The crafting ratio is 1-to-1, so you’ll always get as many Black Dyes as Ink Sacs you use.
How to Get Ink Sacs
You can get Ink Sacs as drops from hunting Squid. Each Squid you slay will give your somewhere between 1 to 3 Ink Sacs. Additionally, you can also buy 3 Ink Sacs from Wandering Traders for 1 Emerald—if they have this trade option. While fishing, it’s also possible to snag a bundle of 10 Ink Sacs at once, albeit only with a 0.1% chance. Strangely, you also have a 40% find 1 to 3 Ink Sacs in the Chests of Strongholds.
How to Get Wither Roses
Alternatively, you can use a Wither Rose to make Black Dye in the same manner as with Ink Sacs. 1 Wither Rose will make 1 Black Dye, which makes it an expensive recipe due to the rarity of the dark flower. You cannot find Wither Roses naturally, you have to get them by a rather sinister process. Wither Roses only spawn when a mob is killed by an attack from the Wither. As such, this means you’ll have to summon the Wither and let it wreak havoc to get Wither Roses. For the ingredients needed to summon the Wither, you’ll have to head into the Nether.
Can Ink Sac Be Used Instead of Black Dye?
If you’re playing the Java Edition of Minecraft, you cannot use Ink Sacs in place of Black Dye. However, in the Bedrock Edition of the game, you can use Ink Sacs instead of Black Dye as a crafting ingredient in making other colors of dye. This trait is not true for Wither Roses, which can mostly only be used for making Black Dye or crafting Suspicious Stew with the Wither effect.
What You Can Use Black Dye For
Since Squids are pretty common in underwater biomes, you can farm them for lots of Ink Sacs. This makes Black Dye one of the easier dyes to acquire, allowing for great dark-themed bases and lairs. You can use Black Dye in a few different ways for your decorative purposes.
What You Can Dye Directly With Black Dye
- Using Black Dye on Sheep will turn their wool black
- You can turn the collars of tamed Cats and Wolves black with Black Dye
- Using Black Dye on placed blocks of Wool, Beds, Glass blocks, Terracotta blocks, and Shulker Boxes will turn them black
Other Dyes You Can Make With Black Dye
While not as versatile as White Dye in this regard, Black Dye can still help you get a couple of different colors. Firstly, on any crafting grid, you can combine 1 Black Dye and 1 White Dye to get 2 Gray Dye. Next, you can combine 1 Black Dye with 2 White Dye to get 3 Light Gray Dye.
Crafting Recipes That Need Black Dye
In addition to using Black Dye directly, you can also use it as a crafting component to make quite a few blocks darker.
- You can combine a Bed and Black Dye to make a Black Bed
- You can combine a Candle and Black Dye to make a Black Candle
- When you’re making Concrete Powder, you can use Black Dye to make Black Concrete Powder
- When crafting different kinds of Fireworks, you can use Black Dye to make them have black particle effects
- You can combine a Shulker Box and Black Dye to make a Black Shulker Box
- Glass blocks can be combined with Black Dye to turn them into Black Stained Glass blocks
- Glass Panes can be combined with Black Dye to turn them into Black Stained Glass Panes
- You can combine Terracotta blocks and Black Dye to make Black Terracotta blocks
- You can combine Wool blocks and Black Dye to make Black Wool blocks
