If you’ve ever found yourself stuck waiting for iron ingots to smelt or running out of fuel for upgraded workstations mid-craft, you already know how important it is to master how to make charcoal in Enshrouded. I can’t tell you how many times I ran out of charcoal mid-smelt when I first started playing, wasting 20 minutes of waiting time because I forgot to queue more batches the night before. Charcoal burns 3x longer than raw wood, works for every high-heat crafting station, and is a core ingredient for mid-game items like gunpowder and rainproof campfires. This guide pulls from 120+ hours of playtime across both solo and public PvP servers to give you the most efficient, no-fuss method to stockpile this essential resource.
What You Need to Make Charcoal in Enshrouded
Before you can start producing charcoal, you’ll need to unlock a few basic items first, all of which are available within the first few hours of gameplay. You don’t need to beat any bosses or unlock late-game tech to get started, which is why I always recommend new players set up their first charcoal farm before they start mining iron ore. You don’t need high-quality wood like Ancient Wood to make charcoal – regular pine wood from the starting meadows works just as well, so you don’t waste rare resources better saved for endgame building.
Keep in mind that your crafting station for charcoal will produce smoke, so you’ll want to plan where you place it ahead of time. Always place your Kiln in a well-ventilated, uncovered outdoor area to avoid annoying stamina debuffs from trapped smoke. Here’s the full list of items you’ll need to get started:
- 1 unlocked Kiln crafting station (crafted at the basic workbench with 20 stone, 10 wood, and 5 mud)
- 2 units of regular wood per 1 charcoal output
- 1 empty inventory slot in the Kiln to store produced charcoal
- Optional: Extra locked chests nearby to stockpile raw wood and finished charcoal
Step-by-Step Process to Craft Charcoal Efficiently
Once you have your Kiln set up, crafting charcoal is straightforward, but there are a few small tricks to speed up production and avoid wasted time. First, interact with the Kiln to open the crafting menu, then navigate to the Resources tab to find the charcoal recipe. It will be near the top of the list, so you don’t have to scroll through dozens of building pieces to find it.
Add your stockpiled wood to the Kiln’s input slot, then select how many batches of charcoal you want to make. You can queue up to 50 charcoal crafts at once, so you don’t have to check back every 30 seconds while you’re doing other base tasks. Each batch takes 20 seconds to complete, so 50 batches take just over 16 minutes – the perfect amount of time to run a quick Shroud biome run for iron ore or loot. If you have multiple Kilns running side by side, you can cut that production time down drastically. I usually run 4 Kilns at once when I’m prepping for a big base build, and I can get 200 charcoal in that same 16 minute window.
Once the batches finish, make sure to move the charcoal to a storage chest right away if you play on public servers. Always move finished charcoal to a locked chest immediately if you play on public servers to avoid losing hours of production to wandering looters. Even on solo servers, moving it to a dedicated chest will help you keep track of your stockpile so you don’t accidentally run out.
Smart Ways to Farm Wood for Charcoal Production
Cutting down individual trees by hand works fine when you only need 20 or 30 charcoal early on, but once you need 1000+ units for mid-game crafts like steel ingots, explosives, and reinforced building pieces, you’ll need a faster way to get wood. The first upgrade you should get is the Woodsman class’s tree felling perk, which lets you cut down entire trees with one swing of a bronze axe or better. That cuts your farming time by 70% easily, and you won’t have to swing at the same tree 8 times just to get 5 pieces of wood.
Next, look for dense forest biomes on the edge of the starting meadow, far enough from Shroud areas that you don’t have to fight enemies while you farm. You can get 200+ wood in 10 minutes just running through and cutting every tree you see. Only collect full wood logs, as sticks don’t count for charcoal crafting – that’s a common mistake new players make, wasting half their inventory space on sticks that don’t work for this recipe. You can save sticks for making arrows or building scaffolding instead.
If you have a permanent base set up, plant a tree farm right outside your gate. Saplings drop every time you cut down a mature tree, and you can plant them in tilled dirt to grow new trees that are ready to harvest every in-game day. That way you never have to travel far to restock your wood supply, even if you clear out the nearby forest.
Common Charcoal Crafting Mistakes to Avoid
Even though charcoal crafting is simple, I see new players make the same avoidable mistakes all the time that waste resources and slow down their progress. The first mistake is using high-value wood for charcoal. A lot of players burn Ancient Wood they found in the Shroud to make charcoal, but that wood is way better used for crafting high-tier furniture and building pieces that give you extra comfort buffs that raise your maximum stamina. You’re just wasting rare resources if you burn it for charcoal when regular pine works exactly the same.
Another common mistake is queuing too few batches at a time. If you only make 10 charcoal at a time, you’re going to run out mid-smelt and have to pause your iron production to make more. I always make at least double the amount of charcoal I think I need for any project – if I’m smelting 100 iron ore that needs 50 charcoal, I’ll make 100 just to have extra on hand for campfires or crafting gunpowder later. I usually keep a stockpile of 300 charcoal at all times so I never get caught off guard.
You also don’t want to forget that charcoal has uses beyond smelting. A lot of new players only make enough for their Smelter, but it’s also a key ingredient for rainproof campfires that don’t go out during storms, explosive bombs that clear out Shroud roots fast, and even grilled food recipes that give you long-lasting health and stamina buffs. It’s worth keeping a small stack of charcoal in your exploration inventory for emergency campfires if you get stuck in the Shroud as night falls.
Once you get the hang of how to make charcoal in Enshrouded, you’ll wonder how you ever played the game without a steady stockpile of it. It’s one of those low-effort, high-reward crafting tasks that makes every other part of your survival journey way smoother. Don’t be afraid to set up extra Kilns as your base grows, and always prioritize keeping your wood stockpile full so you never have to pause a big project to run out and cut trees. If you have your own favorite charcoal farming trick, drop it in the comments below to help other players out.