A furnace is a block that smelts raw materials into usable items and cooks food

To make a furnace in Minecraft PC, you need eight cobblestone blocks arranged in a square on your crafting table, leaving the center empty. Place one cobblestone in each of the nine squares except the middle one. The result is a single furnace block that you can place anywhere in your world. Once placed, you load raw materials into the top slot, fuel into the bottom slot, and the furnace converts them into finished items.

A furnace is one of the first major tools you'll craft because it unlocks smelting — the process that turns ore into metal ingots, raw meat into cooked food, and sand into glass. Without a furnace, you're limited to what you can craft with raw materials alone.

Key Takeaways

  • Eight cobblestone blocks arranged in a square (with the center empty) on a crafting table create one furnace.
  • Cobblestone is found by mining stone with a pickaxe; stone appears naturally throughout the world.
  • A furnace needs fuel (wood, coal, or charcoal) in the bottom slot and raw material (ore, raw meat, sand) in the top slot to work.
  • Smelting takes time — iron ore takes about 10 seconds to become an iron ingot, and the furnace shows a progress bar while working.
  • A blast furnace smelts ore twice as fast but requires iron ingots and other materials to craft, so a regular furnace is your first step.

Where to find or mine cobblestone

Cobblestone is the most common building block in Minecraft and appears almost everywhere underground and on the surface. You find it by mining stone with any pickaxe — even a wooden one works, though it takes longer. Stone is the gray block that makes up most of the terrain below ground level.

The fastest way to gather eight cobblestone is to dig down a few blocks with your pickaxe and mine the stone around you. Each stone block drops one cobblestone when broken. If you don't have a pickaxe yet, craft one from three wooden planks (from any wood log) arranged in a row on your crafting table, plus two sticks placed below them in a T shape.

Crafting the furnace on your crafting table

Open your crafting table by right-clicking it (or using the interact key on your controller). A 3×3 grid appears. Place one cobblestone in each of the eight outer squares — top-left, top-center, top-right, middle-left, middle-right, bottom-left, bottom-center, and bottom-right. Leave the very center square empty. The furnace recipe requires this exact pattern; if you fill the center, it won't work.

Once the pattern is correct, the furnace appears in the result box on the right side of the crafting window. Click it to add the furnace to your inventory. You now have one furnace block ready to place.

Placing your furnace and loading materials

Right-click (or use the interact key) on any block in your world to place the furnace there. The furnace opens automatically when you place it. You'll see two slots: the top one for raw materials and the bottom one for fuel. The furnace also shows a progress arrow in the middle that fills as smelting happens.

Put your raw material in the top slot — this could be iron ore, raw beef, sand, or any other smeltable item. Put fuel in the bottom slot. Coal is the most common fuel, but you can also use charcoal (made by smelting wood in a furnace), wooden planks, logs, or even lava buckets. The furnace starts working when ready and shows a flame icon when fuel is burning.

What items you can smelt in a furnace

A furnace can smelt ore into ingots (iron ore becomes iron ingots, gold ore becomes gold ingots), cook raw meat into cooked meat, turn sand into glass, and convert wood logs into charcoal. Each item takes a different amount of time — iron ore takes about 10 seconds, while sand takes 10 seconds to become glass. The progress bar shows how much longer the current item needs.

If you need to smelt many items at once, you can place multiple furnaces side by side. Each one works independently, so you can load different materials into each furnace and let them all run at the same time. This is much faster than waiting for one furnace to finish before starting the next batch.

Upgrading to a blast furnace later

Once you have iron ingots from your furnace, you can craft a blast furnace, which smelts ore twice as fast as a regular furnace. A blast furnace requires five iron ingots, one furnace, and three smooth stone blocks arranged in a specific pattern. Smooth stone is made by smelting regular stone in a furnace.

A blast furnace only smelts ore and raw metals — it won't cook food or smelt sand into glass. So you'll keep your regular furnace for those tasks. Many players build both and use the blast furnace for ore when they're mining heavily.

Troubleshooting common furnace problems

If your furnace isn't working, check that you have fuel in the bottom slot. The furnace won't smelt anything without fuel, even if the material is in the top slot. If the furnace is running but very slowly, you may be out of fuel — the flame icon disappears when fuel runs out, and smelting stops when ready.

If you placed the furnace and it looks wrong or won't open, you may have clicked on the side instead of placing it. Break it with your pickaxe and try placing it again on a different block. If items aren't appearing in the output slot after smelting finishes, your inventory may be full — drop some items on the ground to make room, then right-click the furnace again to collect the finished items.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I use wood as fuel in a furnace?

Yes. Wooden planks, logs, and wood slabs all work as fuel. One log smelts about 1.5 items, while one plank smelts about 0.75 items. Coal is more efficient — one coal smelts about 8 items — so save your wood for early game when you don't have coal yet.

What's the difference between a furnace and a smoker?

A smoker cooks food twice as fast as a furnace but can't smelt ore or other materials. If you're mainly cooking meat, a smoker is faster. But a furnace is more useful early on because it handles ore, which you need to progress in the game.

Do I need to stand next to the furnace while it's smelting?

No. Once you load the material and fuel, you can walk away. The furnace keeps working in the background. You can return whenever you want to collect the finished items. The furnace only stops if it runs out of fuel.

Can I move a furnace once I've placed it?

Yes. Break it with any pickaxe and it drops as an item you can pick up and place elsewhere. Breaking it doesn't destroy the furnace — you get the block back. Any items inside are also dropped when you break it.

How much fuel do I need to smelt a stack of iron ore?

A stack is 64 items. One coal smelts about 8 items, so you'd need about 8 coal to smelt a full stack of iron ore. It's a good idea to have extra fuel on hand so you don't run out halfway through.