How to Make Glass in Minecraft and Pick It Up Unbroken
Smelt sand or red sand in a furnace for 1 glass per block. How to make glass in Minecraft in bulk, mine it without breaking it, and craft panes.
Glass is smelted, not crafted. Put sand or red sand in the top slot of a furnace, add fuel, and each sand block becomes 1 glass block. Both kinds of sand give the same clear glass.
Getting the sand
Deserts and beaches have sand by the thousands, and riverbeds and ocean floors are covered in it. Badlands give red sand. A shovel makes collection quick; with Efficiency it’s close to instant. Watch for sand falling on you when you dig under it, and for cacti in deserts.
Smelting it in bulk
One stack of sand takes a single furnace a bit over 10 minutes. To speed things up:
- Run several furnaces at once. Split the stack across 4 or 8 furnaces.
- Use a long-burning fuel. A lava bucket smelts 100 items, a block of coal 80. Coal and charcoal do 8.
- Automate it. A hopper above feeds sand, a hopper on the side feeds fuel, and a hopper below collects glass into a chest.
A blast furnace won’t take sand; it’s for ores and metal only.
Picking glass back up
Break placed glass normally and it shatters with no drop. You need a Silk Touch tool to get it back. Any tool with Silk Touch works, but a pickaxe mines it fastest. Glass panes follow the same rule. If you don’t have Silk Touch yet, think before you place a big window.
What glass turns into
| Item | Recipe | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Glass panes | 6 glass in two rows | 16 panes |
| Glass bottles | 3 glass in a V | 3 bottles |
| Stained glass | 8 glass around 1 dye | 8 stained glass |
| Tinted glass | 4 amethyst shards around 1 glass | 2 tinted glass |
| Daylight detector | 3 glass, 3 quartz, 3 wooden slabs | 1 detector |
| Beacon | 5 glass, 1 Nether star, 3 obsidian | 1 beacon |
| End crystal | 7 glass, 1 eye of ender, 1 ghast tear | 1 end crystal |
Panes are the better window choice most of the time: 6 glass become 16 panes, so you cover more than twice the area. Glass bottles are the first thing you need for brewing. And a beacon uses glass as its casing, which is why it’s see-through.
Tinted glass looks dark and blocks light completely, which is handy for mob farms that need darkness while you still watch inside.
More basic material guides live on the guides hub.
Common questions
Can you smelt sand in a blast furnace?
No. A blast furnace only smelts ores, raw metals and metal gear. Use a regular furnace for sand.
Why does glass break without dropping?
Glass only drops itself when mined with a Silk Touch tool. Any other tool or your hand shatters it.
Does red sand make red glass?
No. Red sand smelts into ordinary clear glass. Color comes from dyeing glass afterward.
Sources & verification
Facts on this page are checked against these references and in-game behavior for the stated edition(s). how we verify.
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