How to Make a Furnace in Minecraft and the Best Fuel
Eight cobblestone in a ring make a furnace. How to make a furnace in Minecraft, pick the best fuel, what to smelt first, and when to upgrade.
A furnace is 8 cobblestone placed in a ring on a crafting table, every slot filled except the center. Mine the cobblestone with a wooden pickaxe or better. Cobbled deepslate or blackstone work in place of cobblestone, so you can build one from whatever stone you are standing in.
Using a furnace
A furnace has three slots: the item to smelt goes on top, fuel goes underneath, and the result appears on the right. Each item takes 10 seconds to smelt. Experience builds up inside the furnace as it works, and you collect it when you take the results out yourself.
Fuel compared
Fuel is measured in how many items one piece smelts:
| Fuel | Items smelted |
|---|---|
| Lava bucket | 100 |
| Block of coal | 80 |
| Dried kelp block | 20 |
| Blaze rod | 12 |
| Coal or charcoal | 8 |
| Log or planks | 1.5 |
| Stick | 0.5 |
For your first day, burn a few planks to make charcoal from logs, then use that charcoal as fuel. It means you never depend on finding coal. Our charcoal guide explains the trick. Later, a lava bucket is the best value, and the bucket comes back empty.
What to smelt first
- Raw iron into ingots for tools, a bucket and a shield.
- Raw meat and fish, which restore much more hunger cooked.
- Sand into glass for windows.
- Cobblestone into stone, which you need for redstone repeaters, comparators and stonecutters.
- Logs into charcoal for torches.
- Clay balls into bricks, and stone into smooth stone.
When to upgrade
The furnace does everything, but two specialised versions are twice as fast for their job:
- A smoker cooks food only, at double speed. It’s a furnace surrounded by 4 logs; see how to make a smoker.
- A blast furnace smelts ores and metal items only, at double speed. It takes 5 iron ingots, 3 smooth stone and a furnace.
Both burn fuel twice as fast, so they don’t save fuel, only time.
Automating a furnace
Put a chest on top feeding a hopper into the furnace’s top, another hopper into the side for fuel, and a hopper underneath leading into a chest. Now you can drop a stack of ore in and walk away. Chain several furnaces side by side and you have a furnace array that clears a stack in seconds. One downside: XP stays inside the furnace until a player takes an item out, so pull the last batch by hand to collect it.
If you haven’t made one yet, you’ll need a crafting table first; the furnace recipe uses the full 3x3 grid.
Common questions
Can you make a furnace without cobblestone?
Yes. Cobbled deepslate and blackstone work in the same recipe. You still need 8 of them in a ring.
What is the best fuel for a furnace?
A lava bucket smelts 100 items, and a block of coal smelts 80. Early on, charcoal from logs is the most reliable because you can make it anywhere there are trees.
Do you get XP from a furnace?
Yes. Smelting stores experience in the furnace, and you collect it when you take the output out by hand. Hoppers pulling items out don't collect it.
Sources & verification
Facts on this page are checked against these references and in-game behavior for the stated edition(s). how we verify.
Keep reading