Talk: Smelting

Distinction Furnace and Smelting pages

So, why was this moved from furnace and why isn't it then transcluded onto Furnace's page? --JonTheMon 12:38, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

A lot of people wanted a separate page to go on the home page under popular and useful links. For example the crafting table has its own page but not all the crafting recipes are on that page, they are on a separate page: The Crafting Page. Ecsport108 17:40, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Yeah I personally think it makes more sense to think of smelting as a mechanic and furnaces as a block. --Theothersteve7 17:53, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Animated furnace "arrows"

Quick suggestion, like for brewing... could we have animated "white arrows" in the smelting recipes? I don't know how to do it. Calinou - talk × contribs » 22:25, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Baking vs Smelting and Furnace vs Oven

Although the process is the same, I think the process of cooking food in the Oven should be referred to as Baking, instead of Smelting. Same with using Oven instead of Furnace. This should be the style used in this wiki and on other pages as well. May need major name changing to reflect true/real-life names of the the things and the processes. - Asterick6 01:39, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Nowhere in-game is any reference made to baking or ovens, nor does Mojang refer to it as such. There is no reason to overcomplicate the subject by arbitrarily splitting it in this way when it's not supported by any official source. 「ディノ奴千？！」^{? · ☎ Dinoguy1000} 03:10, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, but you don't smelt food, nor do you smelt wood, clay, glass, stone. It's common sense, and does not need official references to confirm it. Go search it up if you want. - Asterick6 22:58, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Btw this is not an over-complication, it's organization according to the process. If you separate the cooking, smelting, burning, melting processes; then it's easier to find the related things in each type/category of items. If someone wants to see all the possible items that can be cooked, they can just look under the cooking section. Do you get why I did this now? - Asterick6 23:04, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

This isn't about the real-life processes, though, but about the in-game processes, and in-game, there is only one process - smelting. I have no objection to organizing the page according to the type of item, but trying to apply nonofficial labels just because that's how it works in real life isn't gonna fly. 「ディノ奴千？！」^{? · ☎ Dinoguy1000} 23:27, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Unbolded/simplified. (Is bolding only for official names?) It's really just to split the foods and ores to organize it cause before there was no particular order. Probably still needs to be made more clear. - Asterick6 09:06, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Just to be clear, I hadn't actually seen any of the changes you'd made to the article in the course of this discussion; I was just responding to your comments. Now that I've had a look, though, I changed the labels to just the item/block type - does that look okay to you? 「ディノ奴千？！」^{? · ☎ Dinoguy1000} 18:10, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Yea I think its fine...though I was trying to depict the different ones based on what the process actually is..Heating Clay is baking it.. Anyways, for the Misc section, should it be renamed to "Organics" or a better synonym to distinguish between the inorganic metals/materials that are not from living things? Like a word that's for cacti, trees, living things, etc. Cause Misc is really vague. - Asterick6 03:07, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Probably not, since food is organic as well. ;) "Misc" is meant to be vague; short another term that fits without catching other stuff (like "organics" does), it's about the best we can do. 「ディノ奴千？！」^{? · ☎ Dinoguy1000} 04:51, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Lava Buckets

Lava buckets are no longer consumed when you smelt with them, I found this out by accident when I smelted with one in 1.8.1, This article really should be updated to reflect this change. If you don't believe me just see for yourself

As of 1.0.0, there is no compensation for putting a lava bucket into a furnace. confirmed on my copy. --Kizzycocoa 02:46, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Lapis and Redstone

Does smelting the ore blocks only give you one dye/dust?Toadbert

Yes. I have no idea why this was even considered, much less implemented, but that is true. JamesTheAwesomeDude 23:14, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Trivia vanishing bucket.

Jeb tweeted a while back that he would like to change this so it does not vanish. Could any confirm this tweet. I cannot find it anywhere. - CrazyBliep (NL Admin) 20:34, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

I vaguely remember seeing either Notch or Jeb (though I want to say it was Jeb) tweet something like that, though it was quite a while ago (probably before the New Year). 「ディノ奴千？！」^{? · ☎ Dinoguy1000} 20:40, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Fuel efficiency tables

We currently have two identical tables, here and at Furnace. This sort of thing bothers me as a programmer, as people need to remember to change both. Would it be reasonable to replace one with a link to the other, or move the table to a new page (e.g., Smelting/Fuel efficiency) and transclude it in both articles? -- Orthotope 09:40, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Just replacee one with a link to the other - I'd personally argue for keeping the copy here. 「ディノ奴千？！」^{? · ☎ Dinoguy1000} 14:20, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

auto smelter with craftbook or falsebook/mcmania

There is no tutorial yet (like the farming guides) - is this because of the heavy usage of plugins? 95.88.148.64 11:24, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Charcoal Efficiency

I thought I'd take some time to figure out the true efficiency of charcoal in wood-equivalency. This isn't of great importance because it's only a difference of about 2%. It turns out that every smelting event with charcoal (8 processes or 80 seconds) you're using, not 9/8ths logs, but 1 + sum(1/8^(1...n)) logs, where n is the number of iterations you make converting logs to charcoal using charcoal. (To explain, this is because the charcoal you are using to smelt your charcoal is more than 1 log equivalency, and this little bit extra is applied for each level deep you go). And then there's also a little bit for the 2 planks you use to smelt your first 3 charcoal, but we'll ignore that. Anyway, under ideal circumstances this averages out to 1.143 logs per 80 seconds of smelting (rather than 1.125). In effective seconds per log, this brings it down to 68.6, rather than 70. Thanks for reading. Pareidolon 02:33, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

I posted on here a long time ago, arguing that the true mathematical limit of efficacy of charcoal is actually 70 seconds of burning time per log. I won't present my argument again. I will, however, prove that you can achieve greater than 68.6 seconds per log. Here are explicit instructions: Start with 586 logs. Use one log to smelt another. You now have 1 charcoal and 584 logs. Use 1 charcoal to smelt 8 logs. You now have 8 charcoal and 576 logs. Use 8 charcoal to smelt 8 logs. You now have 64 charcoal and 512 logs. Use 64 charcoal to smelt the remaining 512 logs. You now have 512 charcoal which can burn for a total of 40960 seconds. This means you have achieved 69.90 seconds per log. If you start with 1,227,133,514 logs, you get a total burning time of 85,899,345,920 seconds for an efficacy of 69.99999995 seconds per log. Da5id 21:38, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Plank Slabs Better Than Charcoal?

If the table is correct, it looks like slabs are now a more efficient way to smelt things than charcoal. Stuart98 00:11, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that is correct. However, you can't use wooden slabs as fuel in the current patch, but you can in the snapshot 12w22a. Don't know which snapshot introduced this but since it's not really possible to do in the official game, it shouldn't really be on the table yet. Especially because the official releases often differs from the patch that actually gets released. In this case though, I believe it will stay in the patch, since it's a wooden item so it makes sense that it can burn. - 84.238.59.158 15:43, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Wooden slabs duration?

I just made a test in 1.3 and a stack of 64 slabs could only smelt 48 items, so that means that each slab actually smelts 0.75 items. I didn't want to change the table before having some kind feedback, but it actually makes more sense. 95.69.68.215 15:43, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Product/Ingredient column order

In the Recipes section, wouldn't it be more intuitive to place the Ingredient column before the Product column? Left-to-right order implies chronology. Rofang 22:59, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Stating the obvious?

I was wondering if this line is needed, it looks like stating the obvious to me:

Note that after the fuel source has started burning, you cannot stop it from burning, so when burning with fuel sources such as lava, which, at maximum efficiency, can burn more than a stack of items, the items must be refilled. If the player were to enter 64 items and a bucket of lava, the lava would keep on burning long after the items are cooked/smelted. The amount of time that a fuel source will burn is always the same, but the amount of items that it will burn vary, depending on whether it is operated at maximum efficiency or not.

--Raymond0412 10:12, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

To me, this entire wiki is stating the obvious unless it's something new. This article is stating all related information about the Furnace. If someone came here to learn about the Furnace, they would not know that, even if it's obvious to you, me, or other players. Also, your signature is ~~~~, which is noted right below those three buttons on every edit page, and in a yellow banner on top for every talk edit page. You'd think THAT would be "stating the obvious", but people still don't get it. --Kanegasi ☺C 12:26, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

exp amounts wrong?

When I saw that baking potatoes gave .35 exp each, I thought I was onto an easy way to level up quickly. But when I smelted a full stack of potatoes, I did not go from level 0 to level 1. I think they're only .1 exp each. I have not yet tested chicken, but I have a sneaking suspicion...24.18.8.160 18:11, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Other

Does Anyone else find it a bit odd that you make a furnace out of cobblestone but you can smelt cobblestone in a furnace? I know it's an important part of the game, but isn't it a little weird? –Preceding unsigned comment was added by General234567 ^{(Talk|Contribs)} 05:13, 21 May 2013 (UTC). Please sign your posts with ~~~~

I suppose if cobblestone melted in the furnace it would be odd. KGuitarMan94 16:20, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Furnace Fuel

Why do all of the smelting recipes except for charcoal's recipe use coal for fuel? 108.27.137.221 16:41, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Because coal is the 'standard' fuel. Any wooden items, charcoal and lava can also be used. As for charcoal, I have no idea. I will change it to look the same as everything else. Lennbot (talk) 16:55, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Rapid smelt?

Can anyone shed some light on why my furnace occasionally smelts anything at about 2X speed (amount of fuel used remains the same, but the smelting gets done quicker) This namely happens with Clay, but it also recently happened with Potatoes and Iron..on multiple furnaces. I have no idea what's going on, but if anyone knows...please help Additional: this is on Minecraft PS4 edition... 81.137.202.194 13:12, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Likely is caused by lag. Otherwise it is likely a PS4 bug. --KnightMiner ^(t|c) 23:51, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Lava (pocket)

In pocket edition, can you burn lava? If so, will a bucket remain in the fuel slot?71.35.109.25 23:00, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Console edition burn times

Hi BDJP007301, I know you're in school, but if you're ever so inclined, would you be able to test what things burn in console edition, and for how long? They may be exatly the same as PC 1.10 times, but it turns out that with pocket that's not the case, so I was hoping someone would double check. Cheers, and do well in your studies.

Same request for any console edition player who happens to see this. – Sealbudsman ^talk/_contr 12:23, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

Achievements broken?

The achievements section seems to have broken images for "Delicious fish" and "rabbit season". I would fix it if i knew how.

Experience rounding

I think that we have all "experienced" that if you do not smelt enough items of a certain type, you don't get any experience at all. I guestimate that the experience you get from the output stack of a furnace, is rounded down to the nearest integer. So 0.99 exp in the output stack gets you silch and 1.99 exp gets you exactly 1 exp.

If this is truly how it works, then why does this wiki page not specify this? In other words, shouldn't it? RealRobijnvogel (talk) 12:42, 12 November 2017 (UTC)

That's somewhat close, but I've put the actual figures on this page, and on the experience page, since you're right, it seems it was missing! – Sealbudsman ^talk/_contr 22:42, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

Kelp hunger restoration

I accidentally held Enter instead of shift when typing a undo summary. According to Dried Kelp, 71.94.241.122's first edit was correct to 0.5 hunger was correct

Split blasting, smoking, and campfire out, or keep these together?

Looking at Recipe#List_of_Recipe_Types, we observe that these three are of different system and that the existence of a furnace recipe does not guarantee that of other recipes. As a result, should we add sections to smelting for these recipes or should we create new pages/stick to respective blocks?

liach (talk) 16:22, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Exp amounts wrong again?

A recent update to the page changed the amount of xp from smelting food from 0.35 to 5.0, with no edit comment. Is there a source on this? Nupanick (talk) 00:02, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Cactus Exp amount is incorrect

I was doing some in-game tests (in Java edition, 1.14.3) about cactus' Exp result, and it turns out cactus yields 1.0 Exp instead of the suggested 0.2. I made this edit, which ended up being undone for being unexplained. Forgive me for not saying so in the summary, I didn't realize it was for explaining your edit. 173.31.220.128 04:05, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

The value for the cactus's XP has kept being flipflopped for like a year on this page. Thanks for testing this. – Nixinova   04:21, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Another user has said it yields 0.2xp in bedrock. I think this is where the inconsistency comes from. – Nixinova   22:26, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

Sticks are the most efficient fuel to make charcoal

1 log = 4 planks = 16 sticks, which can be used to smelt 8 items per log. So from 9 logs total, you can get 8 charcoal, which in turn can smelt 64 items, or 7.11 items per log used to make charcoal.

By comparison, if you use planks, you can use 7 logs (1 to make the planks) to get 6 charcoal, which in turn can smelt 48 items, or 6.86 items per log used to make charcoal. One gets the same efficiency from slabs in Java Edition. So it seems that sticks are the most efficient fuel for making charcoal.

In Bedrock, it gets better: slabs are best because they smelt 2× the amount of their Java counterparts. 3 logs = 24 slabs, which can be used to smelt 36 items for those three logs you started with. Using these to convert 36 logs to charcoal gives you enough fuel to smelt 288 items, or 7.38 items per log used to make charcoal.

With that in mind, I've made a change to the articles stick and Tutorials/Things not to do. ~ Amatulic (talk) 00:46, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

It takes two planks to make four sticks. As such, 1 log = 8 sticks, which is 4 items per log. So, it'll take 10 logs to get 8 charcoal, which smelts 64 items, or 6.4 items per log used to make charcoal. Thus, planks are more efficient than logs by these two benchmarks (raw smelting and with charcoal). Slscool (talk) 01:38, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

@Slscool: Aha. I see where I went wrong. Thanks. I'll revert my changes if you haven't already done so. ~ Amatulic (talk) 17:18, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Nether Wood

Shouldn't we specify that nether wood is not usable as fuel, as the animation currently uses the new nether wood? I would do it, but I'm not sure how... -FezEmerald (Talk to me|See what I've been up to) 00:54, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

Are you sure about this? Log says that Nether wood can be used for fuel. an_awsome_person (talk) 17:44, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

Nether logs definitely aren't burnable, they aren't included in the #logs_that_burn tag and they don't burn in game, either Icanthanzo (talk) 14:45, 20 April 2020 (UTC)