GRAY WOOL

Gray is the wool that sits next to stone rather than fighting it. Deepslate, andesite and the paler quartz blocks all read closer to gray than to white, which is why it turns up so often on builds trying to look carved out of rock instead of painted on top of it. The Shepherd buys it rather than selling it, 18 handed over for a single emerald once he settles into novice.

The recipe is 1 gray dye laid over one white wool on a crafting grid, so whatever bucket of dye is on hand decides how far a stack of white wool goes toward this color. Spare dye of any color is not wasted either: the same Shepherd buys it back at 12 per emerald.

2 of it crafts into 3 gray carpet on the same grid, so a purchase here covers a stone-toned floor as readily as a stone-toned wall.

One profession handles it. Sell to a Shepherd once he reaches novice, and the rate is 1 emerald for every 18 you hand across, unchanged from one shepherd to the next.

The best rate any villager offers is an emerald per 18 gray wool, from the Shepherd, and 3 of the other 4 pay out faster. No villager sells gray wool back, so it is emeralds out and nothing in.

One slot at the Shepherd takes 18 gray wool a trade, 16 trades, 16 emeralds. 8 of the 72 villagers that pay emeralds, emptied out:

16 acacia boats against 416 flint for the same 16 emeralds, 26 times the carrying, and the shortest wait is the Butcher at 10 real minutes of shelf, gathering not counted. Gray Wool itself pays 18 an emerald, so 53 of the 72 ask less and 15 ask more.

A loom next to an unemployed villager makes him a shepherd, and this offer sits on his table from the moment the job takes, before he has traded a single time. Breaking the loom before that happens hands the profession back, offer and all.

Once buying, the slot takes 16 loads before it locks, and a restock brings the same price back rather than a new roll, so a shepherd who buys gray wool keeps buying it after every refill for as long as the trade table stays put.

16 loads and the slot shuts, needing 2 real minutes back at the loom before it reopens. A Minecraft day runs 20 real minutes, long enough for two of those refills to land while you wait.

Stay a full day and one shepherd works through 32 loads of gray wool, plenty for a quartz-and-deepslate build without needing a second villager on the same job.

Keep the dye separate from the wool run. A shepherd who buys gray wool is not the same shepherd who might be buying any dye at a better tier, so it is worth checking both offers before assuming one villager covers the whole loop.

The same loom sells shears, its cheapest offer, useful if the sheep nearby still have their wool on rather than already sheared.

Also on the Shepherd's list: colored wool, colored carpet, bed, banner, and painting, the rest of what one loom can put on offer.

There is no grey flower and no grey sheep worth hunting: grey dye is black and white mixed, and light grey needs a third step. That is why buying grey wool from a Shepherd is more often worth it than buying a colour with a flower behind it.

For builders it is the neutral that sits next to stone and deepslate without fighting them, which is exactly where wool usually looks wrong. Sheared sheep regrow their wool, so the cheaper route is always white wool plus dye if you happen to have both.

Black dye is an ink sac, which means a squid, and grey is that ink sac mixed with bone meal. Both halves of the recipe are mob drops rather than plants, which is unusual for a colour and is why grey feels more expensive than it looks.

A glow squid gives glow ink instead, which is not a dye at all: it goes on signs and item frames to make them readable in the dark.

Wither roses give black dye too, and they are the only flower that does, which is a strange piece of trivia to have in your pocket when the squid pond runs dry.

Gray sheep spawn naturally, and a single dose of gray dye turns any white one gray for good. Either way the Shepherd pays one emerald per 18 Gray Wool, 16 times a restock, and How to Make a Wool Farm in Minecraft keeps the Gray Wool coming without shears in your hand.