Smooth stone is a clean, flat gray block that many builders love for floors and modern designs, and it is a required ingredient for the blast furnace. You cannot find smooth stone naturally in most worlds, and you cannot craft it directly. The only way to make smooth stone in Minecraft is to smelt it twice: first cobblestone into stone, then stone into smooth stone. This guide walks through the process step by step, explains how much fuel you need, and covers smooth stone slabs and the best ways to mass-produce it.
Quick answer
- Mine cobblestone with any pickaxe.
- Smelt cobblestone in a furnace to get stone.
- Smelt that stone again to get smooth stone.
That is all there is to it. Each block of cobblestone becomes one block of smooth stone after two trips through the furnace.
Step 1: Gather cobblestone
Cobblestone is the most common block you will mine. Breaking natural stone with any pickaxe drops cobblestone. A wooden pickaxe is enough. Mine a few stacks if you are planning a large build, because smooth stone is often used in big floors and walls. If you already have stone from a Silk Touch pickaxe, you can skip the first smelting step entirely, because Silk Touch mines stone as stone instead of cobblestone. See pickaxe enchantments.
Step 2: Smelt cobblestone into stone
Place a furnace and open it. Put cobblestone in the top slot and fuel in the bottom slot. Coal, charcoal, wooden planks, logs, blaze rods and lava buckets all work. Each item takes ten seconds to smelt in a normal furnace. When the arrow fills, collect the stone from the output slot on the right. If you do not have a furnace yet, craft one from eight cobblestone in a ring on a crafting table; read how to make a furnace.
Step 3: Smelt stone into smooth stone
Put the stone back into the furnace’s top slot and smelt it again. The output is smooth stone. You get a small amount of experience for each block, so smelting large batches is also a gentle way to earn levels for enchanting.
How much fuel do you need?
One piece of coal or charcoal smelts eight items. That means one coal turns eight cobblestone into stone, and a second coal turns that stone into smooth stone, so you need two coal for every eight smooth stone. A lava bucket smelts 100 items, which makes it the most efficient fuel for big batches, and a blaze rod smelts 12. A stack of 64 smooth stone therefore needs 16 coal, or just over one lava bucket for the whole job.
Can you use a blast furnace?
No. The blast furnace only smelts ores, raw metals, and metal tools and armor. It cannot smelt cobblestone or stone. Use a regular furnace. The smoker is for food only. To speed things up, place several furnaces side by side and split your cobblestone between them, or build a furnace array with hoppers that feeds many furnaces at once.
Building an automatic smooth stone setup
For large projects, build a simple auto-smelter. Place a chest on top of a hopper that feeds into the top of a furnace, a second hopper feeding fuel into the side, and a third hopper below the furnace leading into an output chest. Fill the top chest with cobblestone and the side hopper with coal. The furnace smelts automatically and the stone collects in the output chest. Move that stone back to the input chest for the second smelt, or chain two smelters together so the first one’s output feeds the second. Combined with a cobblestone generator, which creates cobblestone where lava meets water, this gives you an endless supply.
What is smooth stone used for?
Blast furnace
The most important use is the blast furnace, which needs three smooth stone on the bottom row, a furnace in the center and five iron ingots around it. Blast furnaces smelt ores twice as fast as a regular furnace. See how to make a blast furnace.
Smooth stone slabs
Place three smooth stone in a row on a crafting table to get six smooth stone slabs, or use a stonecutter to get two slabs from each block with no waste. Smooth stone slabs are the classic floor and roof material in many builds, and they are used in recipes too: armorers’ villages use them, and they are part of some decorative recipes.
Building
Smooth stone has a simple, even texture with a subtle border, which makes it ideal for modern houses, roads, castle floors and factory buildings. It pairs well with stone bricks, polished andesite and deepslate tiles for contrast. Note that smooth stone has no stairs or walls; only slabs exist, so builders often combine it with stone bricks for stairs.
Where smooth stone appears naturally
Although you usually have to smelt it, smooth stone generates in a few structures. Some village buildings, especially in plains and savanna villages, include smooth stone or smooth stone slabs, and you can mine them with a pickaxe. Collecting it from villages is fine for small amounts, but take care not to damage villages you want to use for trading.
Smooth stone FAQ
Can you craft smooth stone?
No. You must smelt stone in a furnace. Only slabs are crafted from smooth stone.
How do you get smooth stone fast?
Use a Silk Touch pickaxe to mine stone directly, then smelt it once. Use several furnaces and lava buckets as fuel.
Does smooth stone need a pickaxe to mine?
Yes. Breaking it without a pickaxe drops nothing.
What is the difference between stone and smooth stone?
Stone has a speckled texture and is what most of the underground is made of. Smooth stone is flatter with a border, and it is only obtained by smelting stone.
Is smooth stone the same in Java and Bedrock?
Yes. The recipe, smelting process and uses are the same on every edition.
Design ideas with smooth stone
Smooth stone works best when you mix it with other gray blocks to add depth. Try a floor of smooth stone with borders of polished andesite, or walls of stone bricks with smooth stone trim at the top and bottom. Smooth stone slabs make clean, flat roofs on modern houses and look great as window sills and shelves. In industrial builds, pair smooth stone with iron bars, chains and lanterns for a factory look. Because the texture has a subtle frame around each block, large flat areas look tiled, which suits kitchens, bathrooms and town squares. If the gray feels too cold, add oak or spruce accents, plants and warm lighting to soften it.
Java vs Bedrock differences
The process is identical on Java and Bedrock: two smelting steps in a regular furnace. The only practical difference is that hopper and redstone behavior differs slightly between editions, so auto-smelter designs from Java tutorials may need small adjustments on Bedrock. Smelting speed and fuel values are the same.
Once you have a steady supply of smooth stone, you can build blast furnaces for every ore-processing station in your base and use the leftover blocks for clean, modern floors.
Related guides
Continue with stone bricks, the stonecutter and how to make stone to complete your stone building toolkit.