How To Use A Furnace In Minecraft

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Using a furnace is one of the simplest things in Minecraft, and you will have to do it a lot. Smelting ores, cooking food, turning sand into glass, turning diamonds back into diamond ore (not very efficient, but why not?). The only trick is to efficiently use the fuel you have at hand.

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1
Open your furnace. This is done by clicking the "use" button while aiming at the furnace. The preset button for this is the right mouse button.
- You'll obviously need to craft a furnace first, if you haven't done already.
2

Place fuel in the bottom slot on the left. You'll need to carefully determine which kind of fuel you need, as each kind of fuel smelts/cooks a different amount of items. While one bucket of lava can process 100 items, charcoal can only process 8, and saplings only half an item (so you'll need two to process one item). For a complete list of fuels and how much items they can process, check out this table
3

Place the item to be processed in the top left slot. You can burn wood to make charcoal, smelt iron ore into iron ingots, or cook food so it replenishes more hunger.
4
Wait for it to finish. The furnace will keep working until it's either run out of items to process or fuel.
- Note that sleeping in a bed will not speed up or skip the furnace.

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Question

How do I separate items in Minecraft?

Right-click the block you want to separate and it will split. You can also select the block and go to an empty square in your inventory. Then, right-click to put one block into your inventory for a specific amount.
Question

What do I press on my keyboard to open the furnace?

To open a furnace, be facing it, then right-click your mouse or press the button you use to place blocks or use other items.
Question

How do you start a smoker?

To start a smoker you need to place fuel like coal or wood in the space at the bottom, then put a food item that can be cooked in the top space. You cannot smelt any other items besides foods that can be cooked.

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If you want to use your coal efficiently, craft a block of coal instead. This can process 80 items, instead of the 72 items nine separate coals could do.
Once you have your furnace, get some stone tools while you're at it. This way, you can use your wooden tools to make charcoal and immediately start processing other things.
Instead of just staring at your furnace and waiting waiting for it to finish, do something useful. Organize your chests. Go and kill some spiders.
If your fuel can burn more than one stack of items (e.g., a bucket of lava processes 100 items), you need to make sure you can put the other items (36 in the case of lava), so you don't just waste your resources.