The furnace is one of the most important blocks in Minecraft. It turns raw ores into ingots, raw food into cooked meals, sand into glass, cobblestone into stone and logs into charcoal. You will use it from the first night until the end of the game. This guide explains how to make a furnace in Minecraft, how to use it, which fuels last longest, what you can smelt, and when to use a blast furnace or smoker instead.
Quick answer: furnace recipe
| Cobblestone | Cobblestone | Cobblestone |
| Cobblestone | Empty | Cobblestone |
| Cobblestone | Cobblestone | Cobblestone |
8 cobblestone around an empty center make 1 furnace. You can also use cobbled deepslate or blackstone, and you can even mix them. The recipe is the same on Java, Bedrock and consoles.
How to get cobblestone
Mine stone with any pickaxe and it drops cobblestone. Stone is everywhere underground and on mountains. Make a wooden pickaxe first: 3 planks across the top row and 2 sticks down the middle of a crafting table. Eight blocks of stone give you a furnace within the first few minutes of a new world. See how to make a pickaxe.
How to use a furnace
- Place the furnace and open it.
- Put the item you want to smelt in the top slot.
- Put fuel in the bottom slot.
- A flame icon shows the fuel burning and an arrow shows progress.
- Take the result from the output slot on the right.
Each item takes 10 seconds to smelt. The furnace keeps working when you close it, so you can load a full stack and come back later. When you take items out, you also collect the experience the furnace stored.
Best furnace fuels
| Fuel | Items smelted per fuel |
|---|---|
| Lava bucket | 100 |
| Block of coal | 80 |
| Dried kelp block | 20 |
| Blaze rod | 12 |
| Coal or charcoal | 8 |
| Logs, planks and most wooden blocks | 1.5 |
| Wooden tools and slabs | Around 0.75 to 1 |
| Sticks, saplings and bamboo | 0.25 to 0.5 |
Coal and charcoal are the everyday choice. A lava bucket is the longest-lasting single fuel and gives the bucket back. Dried kelp blocks are a great renewable fuel from a kelp farm. For any large job, use the furnace and fuel calculator to see exactly how much fuel you need.
What can you smelt in a furnace?
- Ores: raw iron, raw copper, raw gold and ancient debris into ingots and netherite scrap. Ore blocks mined with Silk Touch also smelt.
- Food: raw beef, pork, chicken, mutton, rabbit, cod, salmon, potatoes and kelp.
- Building blocks: sand to glass, cobblestone to stone, stone to smooth stone, clay balls to bricks, clay blocks to terracotta, netherrack to nether bricks, sandstone to smooth sandstone.
- Other: logs to charcoal, cactus to green dye, sea pickles to lime dye, wet sponge to dry sponge, chorus fruit to popped chorus fruit.
Related guides: glass, smooth stone, bricks, charcoal and green dye.
Furnace vs blast furnace vs smoker
| Block | Smelts | Speed | Recipe |
|---|---|---|---|
| Furnace | Everything | 10 seconds per item | 8 cobblestone |
| Blast furnace | Ores, raw metal, metal tools and armor | 5 seconds per item | 5 iron ingots, a furnace and 3 smooth stone |
| Smoker | Food only | 5 seconds per item | A furnace and 4 logs |
The blast furnace and smoker are twice as fast but use fuel twice as fast, so they do not save fuel, only time. See how to make a blast furnace and how to make a smoker.
Automatic furnaces with hoppers
- A hopper above the furnace feeds the item slot.
- A hopper on the side feeds the fuel slot.
- A hopper below pulls finished items into a chest.
With this setup you can drop a stack of raw iron in a chest and come back to ingots. Put several furnaces in a row with a hopper line above them to build a super smelter that splits a stack between them for much faster results.
Furnace tips
- Place the furnace inside your base, not outdoors, so creepers do not blow it up with your ore inside.
- Do not leave experience in a hopper-fed furnace forever. Hoppers do not collect XP, so take an item out by hand now and then to release it.
- Use wooden tools you no longer need as fuel instead of throwing them away.
- Armorer villagers use a blast furnace and butchers use a smoker as their workstations. A regular furnace is not a villager workstation, so it will not change a villager’s job.
Furnaces in Java vs Bedrock
The furnace recipe and smelting times are the same in both editions. A few recipes and fuels differ slightly, and hopper behavior around furnaces is not identical, so automatic smelter designs from one edition may need small changes in the other. Bedrock also shows the experience to be collected a little differently, but in both editions you gain it when you take items out of the output slot.
Common furnace problems
- Nothing is smelting: check that the item can be smelted at all. Wood planks, stone bricks and finished tools made of wood do not smelt into anything useful. If the arrow does not move, the item has no smelting recipe.
- The fire goes out: the fuel slot is empty. Add more fuel or connect a hopper on the side of the furnace that pulls fuel from a chest.
- The output is full: the furnace stops when the output slot holds a full stack. Empty it or put a hopper underneath.
- A blast furnace refuses food: blast furnaces only accept ores and metal items. Use a regular furnace or a smoker for food.
- The furnace minecart: a furnace combined with a minecart becomes a furnace minecart, which pushes other carts along rails when you give it coal. It does not smelt anything.
Once you have a row of furnaces with hoppers, a stack of coal and a chest of raw ore, smelting stops being a chore and becomes something that happens in the background while you build.
FAQ
What do you need to make a furnace in Minecraft?
8 cobblestone, cobbled deepslate or blackstone placed around the edge of a crafting table grid.
What is the best fuel for a furnace?
Coal or charcoal for everyday smelting. A lava bucket smelts 100 items and a block of coal 80, which makes them best for large batches.
How long does it take to smelt one item?
10 seconds in a furnace and 5 seconds in a blast furnace or smoker.
Can you make a furnace without cobblestone?
Yes, with cobbled deepslate or blackstone. Smooth stone and regular stone do not work.
How do you get XP from a furnace?
Take the smelted items out of the output slot by hand. The experience stored by the furnace is released to you.
Checked by the Game Respawned editorial team against the current Java and Bedrock versions. Spotted something out of date? Tell us.