Skip to main content
← All Guides
Building · Basics · 1.21

How to Make a Furnace

The furnace is the first machine almost everyone builds. It turns raw ore into ingots, sand into glass, and food into a meal, all for the price of eight cobblestone.

The recipe

Eight cobblestone around the edge of the crafting grid, centre left empty.

What it smelts

Drop an item in the top, fuel in the bottom. A few of the everyday jobs:

Plus every ore, raw food, clay, cactus and more. The full smelting list is on Astroworld crafting.

Fuels, ranked

Lava bucket100 items
Block of coal80 items
Coal or charcoal8 items
Dried kelp block20 items
Any planks1.5 items
Stick0.5 item

The two upgrades

Blast furnace
Smelts ores and metal twice as fast. Add a furnace + iron + smooth stone.
Smoker
Cooks food twice as fast. Add a furnace + four logs.

Quick answers

Which blocks work in the recipe?
Eight cobblestone in a ring. Blackstone and cobbled deepslate also work; smooth stone does not.
What is the best fuel?
Coal and charcoal for everyday jobs (8 items each). Lava buckets (100) and blocks of coal (80) for big batches. Charcoal is renewable, smelt logs to make it.
How long does one item take?
About 10 seconds. One piece of coal smelts 8 items before it runs out.
Blast furnace or smoker?
A blast furnace smelts ores and metal twice as fast; a smoker cooks food twice as fast. Each only speeds up its own category.
Do furnaces give XP?
Yes. Collecting the finished items releases the experience the furnace banked while it worked.
Can I move a loaded furnace?
Mining it drops the furnace empty, so pull the contents and fuel out first.

The furnace pairs with almost everything. Grab the recipes for it and its upgrades on Astroworld crafting, look up coal, charcoal and iron on the items database, or keep your smelted goods tidy with a bundle.