Talk:Blast Furnace

So, does a blast furnace and a smoker smelt things twice as fast and burn fuel twice as fast, or does the same amount of fuel go twice as far as it would in a furnace? This needs to be clarified in both articles. ~ Amatulic (talk) 03:02, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

Only affect smelting speed, while both blast furnace and furnace burn same amount of fuel per items. ImakerB (talk) 03:41, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

OK, so it burns fuel twice as fast as a furnace, then, along with the rate of smelting being twice as fast. Thanks. ~ Amatulic (talk) 03:53, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

Wait, I see the article already says "while using half the regular amount of fuel", so we're both wrong, if that's correct. It's the smoker that burns fuel at double the normal rate so the same amount of fuel is used per item when smoking. ~ Amatulic (talk) 03:54, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

Both the smoker and blast furnace have equally long fuel; the “per item” that was referred it was meant as “per fuel item”. Reminder, fuel is represented in ticks, not input smelting progress.

At least, that’s what I remember. FVbico (talk) 05:55, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

Well, this is confusing then, and needs to be clarified in both articles. ~ Amatulic (talk) 02:50, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

I checked again, and I was wrong; they do use the same amount of fuel per item to melt; actually VERY slightly more (3 carpers can’t melt an item). The wiki is correct as of now. FVbico (talk) 07:57, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

I play Bedrock Edition and the blast furnace doesn't smelt cobblestone or stone, I would classify these as minerals. The RealEvilSquirrel was here (talk) 18:47, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

They aren't minerals, minerals are ores. FVbico (talk) 18:53, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

The article states that "experience earned from blast furnaces is half the amount earned from regular furnaces". I attemped to verify this yesterday by smelting a stack of gold in a blast furnace & a regular furnace. Both gave me 64 XP. Versions checked: 1.14.4 & 1.16.2. –Preceding unsigned comment was added by 2.27.208.178 (talk) at 03:57, 2020 August 26‎ (UTC). Please sign your posts with ~~~~

This Minecraft.net article (published September 10, 2020) repeats the statement about halved XP. --MentalMouse42 (talk) 11:58, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

I just checked the default recipes in the 1.16.4 jar. The experience for smelting and blasting recipes are indeed identical. I'm not sure and I CBA to look if this was changed in some previous version that the article doesn't reflect in the version history, or if that was a mistake made on that article you linked, or perhaps it is a Bedrock Edition only feature. But in the current Java Edition version, it does not half the experience. 98.19.56.89 20:32, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

I checked the version histories for this page, the Smoker page, and the Smelting page, and the earliest revisions amongst all of them that I could find removing mentions of halved XP was these 2 on the Blast Furnace and the Smoker pages. These were a few weeks after 1.14.4, and indeed the editor above tested it in 1.14.4 and the XP wasn't halved. On another note, all 3 of the collective edits on the Smelting, Blast Furnace, and Smoker pages that removed mention of halved XP didn't add anything to the History section, which misleads people into thinking that this was never a feature of these blocks. Can we all remember to add things to the History if they changed and we're changing the body of the article? Milo359 (talk) 03:55, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

Okay, so I've tested this on snapshot 18w50a, the one that made the smoker and the blast furnace functional. I cooked a stack of potatoes in both a smoker and a furnace, and the smoker gave 21 XP, while the furnace gave 22. This is exactly how it works today (and could easily have been the other way around). I then smelted a stack of diamond ore in a blast furnace and a furnace, and both yielded 64 XP, which is also how it works today. (I also tested this on some other 1.14 snapshots and the 1.14 release, and got similar results.) This suggests that the editor who removed the XP-halving mechanic from the page didn't put it in the History section because it never existed. This is a completely untrue myth that was unfortunately reinforced by a misinformed Mojang employee, so I'm going to remove it from the Smoker, Blast Furnace and Smelting pages. DorkOfThunder143 (talk) 13:24, 26 August 2025 (UTC)

So, about the blast furnace, how important and useful would this be early on in the game? Since you have to sacrifice iron to craft this, how worth it would it be? Also, how much would it help with game progression? Would the time increase for smelting raw materials be a valuable tool? Sorry, I just have a lot of questions. I never looked into 1.14 items much. –Preceding unsigned comment was added by 108.255.198.142 (talk) at 19:36, 2020 August 30‎ (UTC). Please sign your posts with ~~~~

It's fairly helpful once you start accumulating stacks of ores and other smeltables -- when you'll need multiple furnaces anyway, you might as well specialize some of them as blast furnaces and smokers. (Note that charcoal and a few other "miscellaneous" things need an original furnace.) But I wouldn't make it while still on my first stack of ingots. --MentalMouse42 (talk) 11:58, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

I wouldn't make a blast furnace even on my second stack of ingots unless I have an iron farm, which is often not practical in survival games with no villagers around. I regard shears and a bucket as highest priority for iron early in the game, followed by hoppers for creating mob farms in case I run across a mob spawner or I find myself in a slime chunk below level 40 and I want to auto-harvest slime balls (I'm working on that now to collect enough slime blocks to displace water to take over an ocean monument). An anvil is my next higher priority, for repairing enchanted weapons and tools, and applying enchantments obtained from books I find. My daily activities in the game take enough time that I can easily wait for a regular furnace to finish smelting something; I have never found myself in such a hurry that I need a blast furnace. If I find a blast furnace in a village, however, I'm happy to take it for my own use. ~ Amatulic (talk) 22:09, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

I was the one who wrote the current version of this list, which can be summarized as: shield, pickaxe, sword, bucket, armor, shears, second bucket, then save the rest of the first stack for replacements. But once you're past that, you can start using iron for more utility items, eventually including anvils, compasses, etc. --MentalMouse42 (talk) 22:59, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

I disagree with that list. A shield is first? I have never needed a shield. Ever. I see the usefulness, but for me it's more important to establish a food supply and shelter (just like in real life), so I need a bed (hence the shears) and food farm (hence the bucket). Iron tools wouldn't be next for me. Stone tools are basically unlimited in supply; iron tools are needed only when you're deep enough to find exotic ores, or you have plenty of iron to spend on such tools. I've been playing an island survival game for months (spare time on weekends) and have barely one stack of iron plus a skeleton farm (which required one hopper), and I have ever had only one iron pickaxe and one iron sword in that game. I have not needed to make armor; I just use whatever armor I harvest from mobs. Some enchanted non-iron armor is just as good as unenchanted iron. ~ Amatulic (talk) 21:39, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

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 Agree with MentalMouse42 as a shield costs 1 iron (also blast furnace costs 1 iron) as they protect against pretty much every early game mob (zombie, skeleton, spider, creeper).---Humiebee ^{Discuss anything with me Look at my edits} 22:02, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

The list is with an eye to "these are your first few ingots". Stone sword can do for starters, but you need that shield to fend off skeletons and creepers. Pickaxe for advanced ores; generally the first thing I do is run a staircase down to bedrock (a shaft needs a fair bit of wood for ladders), and branch mine off it, for not only more iron (rapidly finishing off the list), but gold and redstone (clocks and compasses), and soon diamonds. Sword because it makes a difference, especially before getting iron armor. Bucket for farming, the first few days I just hoe next to a lake, but eventually I'll build that wheat farm and then expand it to a farm tower. I mine by night, and build farms and corrals by day as I collect wood and beasts. In my newest game, I'm ready to build those farms, but still need to find a second cow.... I only just found sheep to get a bed. --MentalMouse42 (talk) 22:10, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

I admit you have a point, but I gotta say, I've never needed a shield. I dodge arrows and I flee from creepers, or sprint through them, taking a swing as I go. If a creeper gets me, it's because I didn't see it, and in that case a shield doesn't help anyway. If I get shot, I always carry food to recover my health. Early in the game, food is most important (particularly in Hard mode), so I'll use my first iron on a bucket to make a farm. Shelter is next, and I want to respawn in a safe place if I'm killed, so shears for wool is next. I suppose I could do without the bucket if I set up my home near a shorline and put dirt blocks there to grow stuff. Yes, it's one iron ingot. I just don't see it as a survival priority compared to a bucket and shears.

I've found, though, once I get a fishing rod, I tend to stop farming altogether and just fish. My current game took so long to find any spiders on my small island that I ended up raising cows, chickens, and pigs, taking boat trips to other islands to bring livestock back, with all the crops to breed them. But once I got the fishing rod, I leave the crops and livestock alone.

Anyway, I'd revise that tutorial list not as a sequence, but maybe a grouping of items with equal priority depending on your situation. I do disagree with the sequence order. ~ Amatulic (talk) 06:46, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

I don't know exactly which version blast furnaces started smelting raw metals and ancient debris, but that should be added to Bedrock's version history.

I looked at this page because I wanted to know exactly what items can be smelted in a blast funace, but then I saw that there was no list. Bob2024 (talk) 06:54, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

No action needed; feedback provider does not appear to know that iron, chainmail, and gold armor and tools can be smelted. This info is already listed in the article (Blast Furnace#Smelting) and in the main article linked in that section (Smelting) and in the respective pages for iron/chainmail/gold tools/armor. The quoted text is from the article intro; I don't think a differently worded intro would have prevented this particular feedback. Rampage455 (talk) 23:15, 13 March 2025 (UTC)