How to Make a Nether Portal with Lava and Water in Minecraft

The traditional way of building a Nether Portal involves diamonds, mining obsidian, and often a lot of time. In this guide, I'll teach you a quick, unconventional method for building a Nether Portal without using any diamonds.

Making a Nether Portal in Minecraft Using Only Water and Lava

To build a Nether Portal using this method, you'll only need two buckets, a nearby lava pool, and a source of water. It's a four-step method that'll get you to the Nether as fast as a speedrunner.

Step One: Prepare your resources

To start off this method, you'll need to craft buckets. You could make do with only one, but that has a higher chance of the lava spreading too far before you can place the water on it. I recommend two buckets to minimize the resources used while keeping you as safe as possible. They can be crafted using three iron ingots each.

Next, you'll want to find a lava pool. It's best to find one with at least 15 lava source blocks to ensure that you'll have enough.

Lastly, you'll want to fill one of your buckets with water. You'll be able to reuse this single bucket of water as you build the Nether Portal.

Related: All Minecraft Nether Biomes

Step Two: Build a dirt wall

To make things easy on you, you'll want to build a dirt wall one block behind where you want your portal to be. This wall will help you place the lava and water precisely where they need to be. Make sure to do this about 15 blocks away from the lava pool to prevent any water from turning into obsidian. I made mine six blocks long and six blocks tall.

If you'd like for your portal to be level with the ground, dig out the first layer of dirt directly in front of the portal.

Step Three: Build the portal

I started my portal from the bottom, as that was easiest for me. To speed things up, I filled the empty space in front of the portal with lava.

I then placed the water from the bucket in the middle of the wall to let it flow over and create obsidian.

To start the sides, use the bucket to pour lava where you want the obsidian to go.

Then pour the water bucket on the dirt block directly above that. Do this quickly to prevent water and lava from spreading and creating a lot of cobblestone.

Continue doing this until the sides are complete.

There are two ways to do the top. The first is to do it exactly like the sides by placing the lava where the obsidian is meant to go and then placing the water on top of it.

The second way to do it is by creating a dirt barrier around the area where you want the obsidian to be.

Fill the created hole with lava.

Then place the water from the bucket on top of the dirt wall.

Now you have a completed portal before you've ever even seen diamonds!

Related: Best Minecraft Nether Portal Ideas

Step Four: Light it up

If you had an iron ingot left over after creating the buckets, you could easily make a piece of flint and steel to light the portal with.

If not, you could use wood from a nearby tree and some of the remaining lava to light the portal! Place the wood next to the portal and use the lava to light it on fire. This method may take several tries, so gathering a flint and steel would likely be faster.

For more Minecraft guides, check out How to make Netherite Armor, Tools, and Weapons here on Pro Game Guides.