How much bone meal do you want?
A composter fills at 7 levels and then gives one bone meal. The first item always lands, whatever it is; after that the game rolls the item's chance every time you drop something in, so the counts below are averages.
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How a composter actually works
A composter fills in seven steps, and each item you put in only sometimes counts. Cake works every time; oak leaves work three times in ten. Once it is full it turns into one bone meal, and the level resets.
That is why the item you feed it matters so much more than the amount. Seven cakes fill a composter. Twenty three oak leaves do the same job on average, and sometimes many more, because every single one is a separate roll of the dice.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best item to compost in Minecraft?
By pure chance, cake and pumpkin pie are the only items that never fail, so seven of either fills a composter exactly. In practice the best item is whatever you have in bulk, and that is usually a crop at 65 percent or a hay bale at 85 percent. Kelp is the classic farm answer because it grows on its own and composts at 30 percent, so volume beats the low chance.
How many items does one bone meal take?
Seven successes, so divide seven by the chance. A 65 percent item averages about 11, an 85 percent item about 8, and a 30 percent item about 23. Those are averages over many composters, not a fixed cost: the game rolls each item separately.
Do seeds work in a composter?
Yes, at 30 percent, along with saplings, leaves and most small plants. They are the cheapest thing to compost by far, which is why an automatic farm feeding seeds into a composter is a standard bone meal setup even though the per item chance is poor.
Where do these percentages come from?
The game's own composter code in the current version, rather than a wiki table. Each item is registered with its chance directly in that file, which is why the numbers here fall into the same five groups the game uses: 30, 50, 65, 85 and 100 percent.
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