In Minecraft, you can not only find and tame mobs in the world, but also create some yourself. That includes golems, a group of Minecraft mobs you can build and put to work for your own purposes. You can build them anywhere with blocks and then use them in different situations. Currently, there are three such golems you can create. Golems made of snow, copper, and iron will lend a helping hand and bring life to your base. They often have a primary purpose, but their use cases can still be very diverse! Today we’re taking a closer look at all three golems, what they can do, and how you can use them.
Iron Golem in Minecraft: Defender of your base and iron farm
The Iron Golem is the largest of all golems and also the only one you don’t just build yourself. Golems are part of villages you can find in your world. They appear there to protect villagers and defeat monsters. Sometimes they’re imprisoned by pillagers and can be found at outposts. Even just in this role, they combine two useful traits. However, you can’t claim a village golem for yourself — you need to build your own.
To build an Iron Golem, use 4 solid iron blocks and a carved pumpkin. Arrange the blocks in a plus shape with the pumpkin as the head. You can build as many golems as you like; they’ll just cost you quite a bit of iron.
In general, Iron Golems are great for defending you and your base, just like they do for villagers. They attack various monsters that come near them. That doesn’t include every monster, and sometimes they only fight back if attacked first. The golem itself can take a lot of punishment, with 50 hearts. The more damage it takes, the more cracked it looks. You can heal it with iron ingots.
For most players, Iron Golems are useful because of their drops. In addition to poppies, they drop 3–5 iron ingots. But you have to invest four blocks yourself — how does that add up? Well, as mentioned, Iron Golems spawn as part of villages. Villagers can produce new golems if their village is large enough or lacks a golem. That exact mechanic is used in iron farms. We already have a guide to an iron farm that still works (How to Build an Iron Farm: Unlimited Supply of Iron) .
Iron Golems are handy helpers in your base, whether as defenders or as part of an iron farm. Both are also useful on a multiplayer server. Rent a Minecraft server for friends and community to make the most of golems and, above all, gather enough iron.
To wrap up, a couple of fun facts about the Iron Golem. Its design is likely inspired by the robots in the anime film “Castle in the Sky.” Much like in the movie, the golem can also offer a flower. It will gladly give it to Copper Golems, and on Bedrock also to baby villagers (the feature is unfortunately bugged on Java).
Snow Golem in Minecraft: Farm snow and hidden functions
The second golem we’re looking at is made of snow. Use two snow blocks and a carved pumpkin stacked vertically to build a Snow Golem. This mob looks more like a snowman than a golem. Be mindful of where you build it, though. In hot biomes, such as deserts or savannas, it will melt away.
Snow Golems also have multiple functions that not every player may know. Most obvious is that they create a trail of snow behind them. That doesn’t work in every biome — it needs to be cold enough. This lets you farm snow indefinitely, as we’ve covered in another article (Minecraft Snow Farm Guide: How to Build an Automatic Snow Farm for Endless Snowballs) .
Snow Golems can also attack, which many players likely don’t realize. They throw snowballs at monsters that get too close. Similar to Iron Golems, they react differently to various mobs. They are, however, much weaker, with only 2 hearts, and their snowballs deal no direct damage.
There’s also a fun little detail for the Snow Golem. If you use shears on the golem, it will drop its pumpkin helmet. Underneath is a funny face that not many players know about.
Copper Golem in Minecraft: Automatically sort chests and Redstone ideas
The final golem is also the newest member of the trio. You can now build a Copper Golem from copper — an extremely useful mob for your base. To craft it, you only need a block of copper and a carved pumpkin, stacked on top of each other. This creates not only a small Copper Golem, but also a copper chest.
Copper Golems are complex mobs that are primarily good for sorting your chests. The copper chest generated with them serves as the starting point. From there, they take items and can distribute them to other chests within a certain radius, as long as those already contain the same item. We’ve covered exactly how to use this in another post (Minecraft Copper Golem: Automatic Item Sorting Without Redstone (1.21.9)) .
These little golems can also be used for Redstone mechanics, since over time they oxidize and freeze into statues. These can be placed in four poses, each emitting four different signals. You can reverse the oxidation with an axe.
The Copper Golem is one of the few mobs that made it into the game despite losing a community vote. It likes to interact with an Iron Golem and will accept its poppy. It then wears it on its antenna as decoration.
Conclusion: Build Minecraft golems and use them wisely
In Minecraft, with carved pumpkins and the right blocks, you can build three different golems. They take on different roles and are sometimes used for automatic farms. The Iron Golem is big and strong, and it’s the only mob that can also spawn without your help. When it dies, it drops valuable iron. The Snow Golem can be used for a snow farm and tosses snowballs around. And the Copper Golem can automatically sort chests as well as emit Redstone signals.
