If you have gotten the hang of Minecraft and moved on from the early game, it’s time to start thinking about upgrades.
Not only can you upgrade your tools and swords with better materials, but you can also upgrade your basic functional blocks, particularly your furnace.
Just like a stonecutter is an upgrade to the crafting table for making building blocks, a blast furnace is an upgrade for your regular furnace. It helps you smelt ore and other materials much faster.
Here’s how to make a blast furnace in Minecraft.
Minecraft Blast Furnace Recipe
- 5 iron ingots
- 3 smooth stone blocks
- 1 furnace
Like we have mentioned, a blast furnace is an upgrade from the regular furnace, so it is the core ingredient here, along with iron and smooth stone.
You are likely to have iron already, but smooth stone is a bit harder to get.
First, you will have to take your cobblestone and smelt it once to get regular stone first. Once you have your stone, you will need to smelt it one more time in order to get smooth stone.
Smooth stone can be found in the world, but it is easier to make it yourself.
Finding a Blast Furnace
You may have a chance in finding a blast furnace if you are in a village. This is the only area where they spawn naturally.
If there is a blast furnace in a village it will almost always be inside an armorer’s building.
The blast furnace can be mined with a regular pickaxe of any quality and strength.
Using a Blast Furnace
Serving as a counterpart to a smoker, the blast furnace specializes in smelting ores, blocks, but also armor pieces. It does so better and faster than a regular furnace.
The speed at which this furnace smelts items is twice as fast as a regular one. However, it also goes through fuel twice as fast, meaning you will not be saving up coal or other fuel materials.
To make the most out of a blast furnace, it is best to use charcoal or even lava, for fastest results.
Tools and armor can also be smelted.
When smelting iron or golden tools you will gain a single nugget in return, respectively. This may only be worthwhile with golden tools, because golden nuggets are more useful than iron ones.
Iron tools are better off being repaired at an anvil instead.
The same applies to iron and golden armor.
Using a Blast Furnace as a Villager Job Site
The reason you can find blast furnaces in villages is because they act as a profession station for villagers.
Any unemployed villagers that come across a blast furnace will be turned into an armorer.
This is a very valuable type of villager that will offer you trades regarding armors, just as the name suggests. The most valuable trade items it can offer you are enchanted diamond level armor items.
However, these trades will likely cost quite a bit. Earning a favor from villagers is a good way to save on emeralds by getting a sale.
To earn a favor from the traders in a village you will have to win a raid in that particular village. Winning a raid grants you quite a bit of loot, but it also earns you a sale with every villager that has something to trade.