Pnk Beanstalk Anatomy
As of: mc1.12.2-4.0b1 (Feb-2018)
A normal beanstalk is a giant smorgasbord of pain, lots of logs, awesome loot, a bit of odd breathing, annoying vines, a little death, too many leaves, and even more awesome loot. It looks like a big jungle tree, but if you try to chop a beanstalk down, it will chop back, hard. This page gives you a little insight into how a beanstalk is constructed so you can plan how to best attack it for raiding. Read the Beanstalk Loot Summary for a description of the items you can find in a beanstalk.
TIP: a blind frontal assault is not a very good attack plan, but it seems to be something everyone is keen to try once, so go for it! Then come back and finish reading the sections below.
The main structural elements are the beanstalk's base, the beanstalk's top or crown, the beanstalk's inner core or heart, and lastly the beanstalk's branched leaf clusters. There is loot and death to be had in all these areas. Holding everything together is the beanstalk's tough bark or skin; this stuff is mostly harmless but there is a lot of it to get through so bring a really good axe.
Note: the pictures on this page are from a creative test world, and do NOT represent a strategy for raiding a beanstalk in survival (well, if they did, it would be a pretty poor strategy).
A beanstalk's trunk base, between 4-7 blocks tall, is made of an outer layer of beanstalk wood bark and a core of a special kind of Infested Cobblestone called Stalkstone. Usually the base is completely above-ground; very rarely some of it extends downward below the planting surface. You probably want to start your chopping at the base, at least for your first beanstalk, because within this layer is a specially crafted loot box that contains items to help you deal with the obstacles you're going to face as you ascend the beanstalk. Before opening any boxes, read this page that explains how beanstalk loot boxes are secured with locks.
Example of exposed Stalkstone and its loot box (bright lime green).
TIP: Pay attention to the circled items!
In addition to the special base loot box, you'll often find another one-of-a-kind loot chest in the base. It's a lunch box that belongs to the beanstalk's owner Mr. G. It contains some interesting food items and uncommon mob drops like Stained Bones and Witch's Flesh.
Snacks to die for...try the Bones Bread.
At the top of a beanstalk sits a gigantic crown of living Stalk Leaves and the crown section of the trunk. This trunk section is between 4-5 blocks deep and extends into the crowning leaves through a couple blocks of living Young Core wood blocks. This is the only place in the beanstalk you will find living young core wood. The bulk of the crown section is made of living beanstalk Core wood, surrounded by living Heart wood and Bark logs.
TIP: Try not to destroy the young heart core blocks if possible. You can use them to convert Inchoate Gold dropped from enchanted beanstalk leaves into Living Gold to mend your X-enchanted gear!
Trunk crown exposed.
As with the trunk's base, there is a specially crafted loot box hidden somewhere in the crown that contains some items not found in any of the other loot boxes. Regardless of how tall the beanstalk is, this loot box is always present at the top though its contents are affected significantly by the opening player's luck level. Be sure to put on your golden Lucky Pants or eat some Lucky Rainbow Slices before touching it.
Most of a beanstalk's trunk, it's heart, is an extension of the blocks you see at the crown: living Core wood, surrounded by living Heart wood, surrounded by protective Bark logs. Also scattered along this section, are various Knots and Bark Lamp blocks.
At random levels within the heart, you will find unguarded "Junk" chests (a giant's junk is a player's bonus loot), and occasionally hidden in the center Core wood, you'll find heart loot boxes, Mr. G's true Preciouses, aka the golden mother-lode. The beanstalk will defend these boxes from looters vigorously!
Typical scattering of junk chests.
The number of junk chests present depends mostly on the height of the beanstalk; you should start finding them every 4-6 levels as you move up (or down) the trunk. In contrast, the number of heart loot boxes is capped between 2-3 per beanstalk, and very very rarely for the tallest possible beanstalks, you might find a 4th box.
Example chest loot.
And Luck makes a difference!
Mr. G likes anything that's gold, or gold-ish, or yellowy-gold-looking, or would-look-nicer-in-gold (like elytras), or is shiny sparkly as if gold (like enchanted books). This admittedly loose criteria includes items that you and I would determine to be very "not gold", but they are to be found nonetheless in the heart loot boxes.
It would be a mistake to ignore the beanstalk's leaves. As the saying goes: "there's loot in them thar leaf blobs" because all beanstalk leaves can drop saplings, gold nuggets, Stalk Nuts, and other small goodies occasionally. The trick is to obtain said loot without getting deaded. Generally there are two kinds of stalk leaves: the ones that try their darnedest to kill you or at least make you go away, and the ones that help you and give you special treats like golden apples and Inchoate Gold. Unfortunately for you, the former far out-number the latter which are nestled at the center of each branch's leaf cluster or at the base of the crown -- IF the beanstalk was grown in a lush jungle biome.
Note that you will kNOT (hee) get Beanstalk Saplings as drops from stalk leaves. Instead, you have a chance to collect every other kind of treeSapling registered in your environment. The sapling drop rate for beanstalks is about the same as regular jungle trees.
Albino Pods
If you grow your beanstalk in a jungle, swamp, or similar biome, the beanstalk's outer bark will be covered with albino pods from which you can get Rainbow Seeds and very rarely a Lost Bean. The pods can be hard to spot, but they only grow under the knotted protrusions from the bark so you should be able to find all of them quickly.