Do you want to cook meat, smelt ores, or just have a light source to survive dark nights? All of that and more is possible with just a single block in Minecraft. You simply need to learn how to make a furnace in Minecraft, and it can take care of most of your basic needs. We are covering the crafting recipe, uses, and even the best fuels to power the furnace block in this guide. This is the only furnace guide you will need. So without further ado, let’s dive in!
We have covered the game mechanics of furnaces in separate sections. Use the table below to explore everything you need to know about this useful block in Minecraft.
- What Is a Furnace in MinecraftWhere Does Furnace Usually SpawnItems You Need to Make a FurnaceMinecraft Furnace Crafting RecipeHow to Use a Furnace in MinecraftHow to Cook and Smelt Items in Furnace
What Is a Furnace in Minecraft
A furnace is one of Minecraft’s most basic utility blocks that is used to cook food and smelt blocks. It’s the main tool for making mineral ores useable as crafting ingredients. And in appearance, a furnace in Minecraft looks similar to a stone oven.
Once placed, you can pick up the furnace by breaking it and can choose to place it elsewhere. On the Java edition, you must use a pickaxe to mine the furnace to pick it up. If you don’t use a pickaxe, the furnace gets destroyed. However, on the Bedrock edition, you can use any tool to break and pick up the furnace.
Talking about natural spawn points, you can commonly spot furnaces in the houses of weaponsmith villagers (one of many villager jobs) in the plains, desert, and savanna villages. In the Bedrock edition, you can also find furnaces in some random houses and their chests in snowy villages. Other than Minecraft villages, you can also find furnaces generated in ancient cities and igloos.
Considering the spawn rate and ease, we suggest you stick to villages to find furnaces. Our list of best Minecraft village seeds can give you a head start in the game. But if you don’t want to change your current world, using Minecraft commands will be a better choice.
With the basics out of the way, it’s time to learn how to make a furnace if you don’t wish to waste time exploring the various biomes to find a naturally spawning furnace. That said, you need the following items to make a furnace in Minecraft:
If you are on the Java edition, you can get a combination of stone-based blocks to craft a furnace. But in the Bedrock edition, you must use the same 8 blocks while crafting. So, to keep things simple, it’s best to collect cobblestone blocks.
You can collect cobblestone by breaking stone blocks with a wooden pickaxe or better. When a stone block is mined, it drops itself as cobblestone blocks. Stone blocks are one of the most common blocks in the overworld of Minecraft.
Once you have collected all the required blocks, crafting the furnace is an easy task. You just need to place all the cobblestone blocks in a square pattern in the crafting area, leaving the center cell empty.
As mentioned earlier, you can also use a mixture of stone-based blocks in this crafting recipe but only on the Java edition. The result will remain the same.
With this useful block in your possession, here are the various purposes for which you can use a furnace in Minecraft:
How to Cook and Smelt Items in Furnace
The furnace in Minecraft has a simple two-cell UI. You have to place the item you want to cook or smelt in the upper cell. Meanwhile, the fuel to power the furnace goes into the bottom cell. When both cells are filled with compatible items, the fuel activates the furnace, and then within a few seconds, the furnace smelts or cooks your item.
You can use the following items as fuel to power the furnace in Minecraft:
Out of these, the lava buckets last the longest and can smelt 100 items in a single go. Meanwhile, the saplings and sticks can only smelt half a block.
