Minecraft: Everything You Need To Know About Smelting

Smelting, as with all things in Minecraft, requires specific items and steps. Here's what you need to know to smelt in Minecraft.

A lot has been added to Minecraft over the years as the game is regularly updated. Smelting, though, has been in the title since before the official release of 1.0. The process is simple, put an item in a furnace with fuel, and it creates something new - assuming the initial item can be smelted.

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Even beginners know how to cook things as it's one of the first things they do in the game. However, there's a lot more to know about smelting than just the act of doing it. From the different types of fuel to alternate uses for a furnace, here are the things you should know about smelting.

There are plenty of different things that can smelt in the furnace. Some of the more common items are the ore you pick up while mining, which can be transformed into ingots to use in crafting.

Most food can also be put into a furnace to cook, which makes them some of the best sources of hunger restoration and saturation you can find. Plus, you can turn sand into glass, smooth out stones, and even dismantle armor pieces through smelting.

When most people think of a Minecraft furnace, their minds immediately go to the oven-looking device that takes eight pieces of cobblestone or blackstone to create. However, there is more than one type of smelter in the Minecraft world.

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There is also the blast furnace that requires five iron ingots, three pieces of smooth stone, and a regular furnace to build. The blast furnace smelts things much faster than the original one, but it can't be used for food or other miscellaneous blocks like sand. If you fancy cooking, you may want the smoker, which deals exclusively in food and works fast too. To craft the smoker, you need logs or wood and an ordinary furnace.

Naturally, when you're smelting something, you're likely to use coal or charcoal as fuel. After all, the two dark substances are specifically designed for burning.

However, there is actually a ridiculous amount of items that you can use to power up your furnace. For starters, every different type of wooden block works as fuel, as does wool and gold nuggets. Keep in mind, though, that some fuel options are much more effective at smelting than others; for instance, a lava bucket works far better than a nether brick.

When you've got your furnace filled with ore and fuel, you'll be tempted to leave it to do its thing. If you only leave its vicinity, the furnace will still burn merrily. But if you go far enough away that the device despawns, ala travel to another dimension, then your cooking will halt.

Once your back in the same dimension, your furnace will start smelting away again, so it's not a huge problem. Yet, the burner's ability to despawn is something you should remember before planing any nether trips.

There are many ways to boost your level in the Minecraft world, and smelting is one of them. Every time you take a recently cooked item out of the furnace, you receive some experience points.

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In fact, burning things in the oven is one of the better ways to gather XP, as you'll just do it naturally while playing the game. You don't need to build intricate farms or set up nice fishing locations; you only need to tend to your typical smelting needs to enhance your level. That being said, it's certainly not the fastest way to gain experience.

Minecraft includes an abundance of achievements and trophies for players to earn. Seven of the tasks surround smelting, like the Pork Chop one that asks you to cook and eat a pork chop.

Some require you to dry a sponge, burn wood trunks using charcoal, and power a furnace with lava. None of the smelting achievements are particularly difficult, but a few are a bit time-consuming. And achievement or trophy hunters will need to know their way around a furnace to 100% Minecraft.

In the Minecraft world, there are numerous sources of light. Yet, early in the game, you might too low on resources to create a lantern or even a few torches. Well, the fire from your furnace supplies its own light when it's burning away.

The flames aren't incredibly bright, and it's only temporary as when nothing's cooking, the fire goes out. However, in a difficult situation, the light from a furnace can be useful, and it's certainly better than staring at a black screen.

Sleeping in a bed in Minecraft lets you change the time of day from night to morning. Yet, napping doesn't actually advance time, meaning the Overworld doesn't move forward eight hours while you're asleep.

The lack of realism tied to beds is annoying when it comes to smelting because if you put plenty of ore in a furnace, you can't just skip the long burning process. Therefore, it's best to make multiple furnaces, so you can have them running simultaneously and speed your smelting up.

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Ben Jessey spends all his time playing video games, watching TV, watching movies, watching football aka soccer (which I guess counts as watching TV) or writing about those things. He has a degree in Film and Television studies and is now a freelance writer.