Enchanted items in Minecraft can make your survival a lot easier in the vast blocky world. They can improve your overall experience with the game.
One of the most popular enchantments for items is the silk touch enchantment, which gives items a special property that makes them more appealing to others to use.
We’ll give you all the details on how to get this particular enchantment in Minecraft, including tips and tricks that will come in handy for you as you play with some of these enchantments during your adventures.
What is Silk Touch in Minecraft
The Silk Touch is an enchantment in Minecraft that helps you mine blocks that are usually unobtainable with standard mining. Instead of getting the dropped items, using Silk Touch allows you to mine the entire block itself.
This enchantment can also be used to gather items that are quite fragile and prone to breakings, such as ice or glass. With Silk Touch enchantment obtained, you can also mine entire diamond or coal ores instead of only getting their drops.
Moreover, you can use the Silk Touch enchantment with any of your pickaxe, shear, or shovel by using an anvil, enchanting table, or some simple in-game commands. After adding the enchantment to your preferred tool, you can then use it to mine.
It will allow you to add all the rare and fragile items to your inventory. Keep in mind that the Silk Touch Enchantment comes with a maximum level of 1, which means you can only enchant an item up to Silk Touch I.
Blocks Obtainable With Silk Touch in Minecraft
Here’s a handy list that mentions all the rare and fragile blocks you can obtain that do not drop naturally with the help of Silk Touch in Minecraft:
- Bee Nest
- Coal ore
- Cobwebs
- Diamond ore
- Dirt covered with grass or mycelium
- Emerald ore
- Ice
- Lapis Lazuli ore
- Mushroom blocks
- Quartz ore
- Redstone ore
Alternatively, here’s a list of blocks that can be acquired in other ways but react differently to Silk Touch:
- Bookshelves
- Clay
- Enderchests
- Glass
- Glowstone
- Gravel will always drop (rather than flint)
- Snow blocks
- Stone
Blocks Incompatible With Silk Touch in Minecraft
If you apply both Silk Touch and Fortune to an item together, the former will take precedence over the latter if the particular block is affected by both enchantments. Silk Touch is also incompatible with Luck of The Sea and Looting enchantments and cannot be applied to fishing rods and swords.
4 Ways To Get Silk Touch in Minecraft
Using Enchanting Tables
If you are playing Minecraft in survival mode, the only thing you can rely on to gain Silk Touch is enchanting tables. To make an enchanting table, first, you have to gather four blocks of obsidian, two diamonds, and of course, a book.
After crafting an enchanting table, you will also need to gather lapis lazuli along with the appropriate experience levels to apply the enchantment to your preferred tools. Follow the steps given below to do so:
- Access the crafting menu on the enchanting table and place the lapis lazuli in the small slot available on it. You will have to stack a total of 64 lapis lazuli in the particular slot to maximize the potential of your enchantment
- On the left-hand side of the enchanting table’s crafting menu, place the preferred tool that you want to enchant with Silk Touch. You can use the enchantment with tools like Shovels, pickaxes, axes, and hoes. In case you are playing the Bedrock Edition of the game, you can also apply Silk Touch to shears
- Once you add the desired tool on the left side, you’ll notice three slots of runic script on the right-hand side of the Enchanting Table’s menu. You can hover your cursor on the scripts to know what type of enchantment will be added to the tool when you click on it
- If you cannot find silk touch in the list, you may have to refresh the enchantment list by trying to enchant a different item instead. It’s recommended to enchant a book to produce new enchantments in the table’s UI
And that’s how you can gain silk touch using the Enchantment Table.
By Fishing
When fishing in Minecraft, it is possible to snag certain items other than fish. There’s a chance of 0.08% to find an enchanted book by fishing in the game. However, as the odds are quite low, it isn’t recommended to rely entirely on this method.
To reproduce this method, you first need to craft a fishing rod by following the steps given below:
- Firstly, gather three sticks and two strings by gathering wooden logs and slaying spiders, respectively
- Once you have gathered the required items, place your crafting table and access the grid by clicking on it
- In the crafting grid, place the three sticks diagonally and the strings in the last column of the second and third rows
This will yield a fishing rod on the right side of the crafting area. Once you have the fishing rod, you have to throw it inside the water and wait for small splashes to appear. As soon as you see splashes, click to grab the fish or enchantment.
Looting from Chests
To gain some of the most powerful enchantments in the game, you can also consider hunting or chests in a couple of places. It is even possible to find level 30 enchanted books in chests found at places like Jungle Temples and Strongholds.
Moreover, there are a few other structures as well where you can find enchanted books of random levels like Dungeons, Mineshafts, Desert Temples, Pillager Outposts, Underwater Ruins, and Woodland Mansions.
Trading With Villagers
Trading is by far the most reliable way to get your hands on Silk Touch enchantment in Minecraft. For this method to work, you first have to find a fresh villager who has not locked into a profession already.
It can be determined whether a villager is already enrolled in a job or not by looking at their trade inventory. If they are on level two, they might not change their profession or change the trades in their inventory.
However, most of the villagers that you find in a village will be compatible to be used for this method, as long as you haven’t traded with them already. You might also have to destroy any extra job sites nearby the village to make the method work correctly.
If you find a librarian villager, you can locate a lectern in his house for the method. Alternatively, if you cannot find a librarian villager, then you can craft a lectern yourself with the help of a bookshelf and four wooden slabs.
Once you have a lectern available at your disposal, locate a villager and lock him inside fences to prevent him from wandering away. Then, place the lectern near him inside the fences and wait for him to pick up on the job.
Afterward, check the trade inventory of the librarian to check what he has to offer. In case the librarian doesn’t offer the trade you are looking for, all you have to do is break the lectern and replace it to change the librarian’s inventory.
While destroying the lectern, you may see storm clouds above the villager, which indicates that he is angry due to losing his profession. However, you need not worry about it as the anger value resets once the villager is reassigned to the position.
You have to keep breaking and replacing the lectern until you find the desired Silk Touch enchantment available in the inventory. As long as you have the desired number of emeralds required for the trade, it will serve as an infinite source of enchantment.
However, if you don’t have the required number of emeralds for the trade, you can roam around different villages and trade simple items in exchange for emeralds. Farmers will exchange emeralds for crops; leatherworkers will exchange emeralds for leather, and so on.
Once you gather enough emeralds, you have to craft a book using three pieces of paper and a piece of leather. With both the emeralds and book ready, head back to the locked villager and trade these items for the enchanted book.
After obtaining the enchanted book, you have to make an anvil to enchant your desired tools with it. An anvil can be made by using 31 pieces of iron ingots. Using the iron ingots, you have to make three iron blocks and then place them at the top of the crafting table’s grid.
Then, place four iron ingots to form an upside-down “T” symbol on the crafting grid. Once done, move the anvil to your inventory and place it down somewhere. Click on the anvil to launch the UI and add your preferred tool to the left slot and the enchanting book to the middle slot.
This will yield the tool with enchantments added to it.
Best Uses of Silk Touch in Minecraft
As you may already know, Silk Touch is one of the most-used enchantments in the game, and there are several reasons why. Let’s take a look at some of the most prominent ways you can use the Silk Touch enchantment in the game for your benefit:
Ender Chest
The Ender chest is a highly valuable and rare block in Minecraft that acts as a mobile storage system with over 27 slots to store all your items safely. As long as you have your ender chest with you, you can access all your stored items anytime, anywhere.
However, if you try to mine an Ender Chest with a regular pickaxe, all it will drop is eight blocks of obsidian. Therefore, to be able to gain the ender chest intact in your inventory, you will have to use a Silk Touch enchanted tool to mine it.
Ice Farming
If your player is located in snowy biomes, you can find plenty of ice blocks in the area. However, it’s not possible to farm ice blocks with the help of regular tools.
If you try to mine ice blocks with a regular pickaxe, all you will get is water out of it. Using Silk Touch enchantment, on the other hand, will allow you to obtain the ice block as it is in Minecraft.
Stone Blocks
In case you have just spawned in a newly created world and don’t have access to any stone blocks as of now, you can try mining them with Silk Touch enchantment as well. Mining them with a regular pickaxe will drop nothing but cobblestones, so it’s a big no.
The stone blocks can be obtained directly by enchanting your preferred tool with Silk Touch. This way, you will save plenty of coal by not having to smelt the cobblestones to receive the stone blocks.
Crimson and Warped Nylium
The Nylium blocks are one of the most useful blocks in Minecraft that can be used to farm warped wood and Crimson. These items are required to farm nether trees, which can only be planted on nylium blocks.
Although mining nylium blocks in the nether doesn’t yield anything with a regular pickaxe, using Silk Touch will allow you to get them directly into your inventory.
Ore Blocks
When you mine ore blocks with regular tools, all it will drop is the minerals associated with them. For example, if you try mining a diamond ore with a regular pickaxe, you will gain diamonds.
However, if you use a tool with Silk Touch enchantment to mine the ore, you can get the entire ore block in your inventory.
Frequently Asked Questions
What Level Do You Have To Be To Get Silk Touch in Minecraft?
To apply Silk Touch on your desired tool, you have to acquire a level 30 enchantment. It can be achieved by placing bookshelves around your enchantments. To be precise, you will require at least 15 bookshelves around the enchantment table to attain enchantments of level 30.
Can Librarians Trade Silk Touch?
Yes, you can find unemployed villagers in a village and place a lectern near them to make them librarians. Then, you can find the Silk Touch enchantment trade in their trade inventory. If you don’t find one, simply break the lectern and place it again until it’s available in the trade inventory.
Can You Fish Up Silk Touch?
Yes, it is possible to acquire Silk Touch enchantment in the game by fishing. However, the chances for this are extremely low. There’s only a 0.08% chance that you’ll find an enchanted book with fishing in the game.
Bottom Line
With the information provided above, you have the basics needed to acquire the Silk Touch enchantment in Minecraft. It is a little complicated, but the payoff is worth it. Now it’s your turn to experience crafted items that are unique and highly valuable in-game.
