As many Minecraft players may already know by now, smelting plays an important role in crafting equipment and materials. This is commonly used in early gameplay sessions, as obtaining iron ingots are required for stronger tools to get better items. However, some players may be unfamiliar with the different types of smelting options. Whether it’s an automatic setup or a stronger furnace, there’s unique ways to smelt materials. Additionally, there’s a wide variety of fuel types to use, with some being absolutely amazing. You get the idea, there’s tons of smelting features to potentially use in-game. Enough with the introduction, let’s get started!
Fuel Types
Before smelting anything, you’ll want to know what types of fuel can be used. Typically, Coal or Charcoal are what players have for their furnaces. However, know that there are tons of other fuel possibilities to explore. Some of these will be better than others, such as Lava Buckets or Coal Blocks. Of course, you can use wood-based items like boats, logs, or even saplings. If you’re wanting to know every single one, then visit the Smelting Wiki to find that out.
Using Furnaces to Smelt
In Vanilla Minecraft, especially in newer versions, players have a few options to choose from for smelting. The most popular one to use is a standard Furnace, which most of you should be familiar with already. If for whatever reason you aren’t, this is a universal block that can smelt all applicable items, ranging from mineral ores to fish. Fortunately, all it takes to craft this is Cobblestone in a square on a crafting table. This makes a furnace vastly available to every player in your singleplayer or server’s world.
Smelting with Blast Furnaces
Besides using the normie way, you can become the ultimate smelter by using a Blast Furnace. This is especially useful for mineral ores, as it increases the smelting speed for them and materials alike. Obviously, using a blast furnace is popular with miners, but it’s also used for decorating bases. The textures resemble an oven, making it a good block for decor. If you’re wanting to learn more about this, then visit our resource here to know its crafting recipe and other information.
Automatic Smelting
If you’re wanting to bypass the manual and intensive labor of smelting, then creating an automatic station will help. This tends to involve hoppers, chests, and any type of furnace. The designs for one can be either simple or complex, allowing room for builders to choose from a variety of options. In our example, we used a simplistic setup for an automatic smelter, but requires fuel and consumable inputs. It can easily get complicated, but reviewing this tutorial may help shed some light on its build.
Enhanced Smelting
Instead of creating an automatic or manual smelter, you can install mods or plugins to help. These range in features, as it depends on what you choose. However, the majority of them include a faster way to smelt materials or completely new blocks for the process. These typically are used on servers, but some modifications can be just for the launcher. Regardless of this, the sections below give examples of what can be used and where to find others.
Plugins
For servers using Paper or other bukkit-based types can install plugins to change the smelting process. For example, using Auto Smelt on Spigot makes furnaces completely pointless! This is caused by a change in pickaxes, allowing to instantly obtain ingots from ores. The Fortune enchantment even gives you more items from them, making it a slightly powerful addition to the game. If you’re wanting to explore other plugins to use, then review our guide here to do that.
Mods
If your server is using Forge, Fabric, or another modded version, then installing mods will help players smelt items. One of these modifications is Better Furnaces on CurseForge, adding brand new furnaces to the game. Each of these have unique features to make the smelting process faster and easier. Although, there are tons of other interesting mods to choose from, so explore them by reviewing our resource here.
Conclusion
Whether you’re smelting items the normal way or spicing it up with automation, this process has many possibilities. Sometimes, combining multiple methods is best for your server or world. A good example of this is using plugins that don’t entirely change smelting, but enhances the overall efficiency. Alternatively, building an automatic station to easily smelt items is something anyone can do in Minecraft, without having to install addons. Players may take this a step further and use only lava buckets to fuel their furnaces. Keeping everything in mind, start your career in smelting with these tips and tricks. We hope you have a good one, gamers!
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