How to Make Bricks in Minecraft From Clay

A brick block takes two steps: smelt clay balls into brick items in a furnace, then put 4 bricks in a 2x2 square to craft 1 brick block. You can’t skip the furnace, and you can’t smelt a whole clay block into bricks (that gives you terracotta instead).

The naming trips people up. “Brick” is the small reddish item that comes out of the furnace. “Bricks” is the placeable block you build with. The grid above shows the second step.

Getting the clay

Clay shows up as gray-blue blocks on the floor of rivers, lakes, swamps and lush caves. Break one with a shovel (or your hand, slowly) and it drops 4 clay balls. Our guide on where to find clay covers the best spots and what to do if your world seems to have none.

Two other sources are worth knowing:

• Mason villagers. A novice mason sells bricks for emeralds, and with Hero of the Village a mason may throw you a clay ball. If you already run a trading hall, buying bricks is often faster than digging.
• Mud. In 1.19+ you can make packed mud and mud bricks from mud, wheat and water bottles. Different color, similar look, no clay required.

Smelting and crafting

1. Put clay balls in the top slot of a furnace with any fuel. Each ball becomes 1 brick.
2. Open a crafting table or your 2x2 inventory grid and place 4 bricks in a square.
3. Take the brick block.

A stack of 64 clay balls makes 16 brick blocks, so if you’re planning a whole house, budget for a lot of clay. A blast furnace won’t help here; it only handles ores and metal gear.

What bricks are good for

Brick blocks are mostly a building material, and a good one. They have the same blast resistance as stone and they never burn, so they’re the classic pick for a fireplace with a campfire or netherrack fire inside.

The brick item has a few uses of its own:

• Flower pots: 3 bricks in a V shape.
• Decorated pots: 4 bricks or pottery sherds in a diamond pattern. Bricks give a plain pot; sherds from archaeology add pictures.
• Brick slabs, stairs and walls: crafted from brick blocks.

Save bricks with a stonecutter

Crafting stairs from brick blocks wastes material (6 blocks give 4 stairs). A stonecutter turns 1 brick block into 1 stair, 2 slabs or 1 wall with no loss. Since every brick block costs 4 clay balls, that difference adds up quickly on a big roof.

Bricks vs other “brick” blocks

If you want gray castle walls rather than red ones, you’re after stone bricks, which come from smelted cobblestone instead of clay. For a matte, colored look from the same clay, smelt clay blocks into terracotta. Nether bricks come from smelting netherrack and work the same way as bricks: smelt the item, then craft 4 into a block.

For more early building materials and how they fit together, browse the guides hub.