Smelting

Furnace GUI — The furnace interface. Note the form of how the spaces are displayed.

Smelting is a method of obtaining refined goods from raw materials by heating in a furnace, blast furnace, smoker or campfire. For example, raw iron can be smelted to produce iron ingots using coal as fuel. Like crafting, smelting uses recipes to determine what item is produced, but its recipes are simpler. Smelting also yields experience.

Usage and mechanics[]

The smelting interface.

The furnace, blast furnace, and smoker share a similar interface: At the upper left is a slot for smeltable item input, below that is a slot for fuel input, and on the right is a slot where output items accumulate and can be removed by the player. Flames above the fuel slot act as a gauge showing the gradual consumption of the current fuel item, and an arrow in the middle gradually fills to show the progress of smelting the current input item.

To smelt, an input item and fuel must be placed into the input and fuel slots, respectively. The furnace then begins to smelt and continues even after the player closes the interface. (The player can still tell when a furnace is working by its block texture showing flames and fire particle effects appearing.)

The furnace burns one fuel item at a time, taking 10 seconds to burn or 200 game ticks, with the fuel gauge indicating how much of that item's burn time remains. As each fuel item is fully consumed, another one is taken from the fuel slot and the gauge starts over.

Smeltable input items are also processed one at a time but are not removed from the input slot while smelting is in progress. The arrow indicates how much of the smelting process has been completed. When the arrow is full, the input item is removed from the input stack and an output item is added to the output stack. Smelting of the next input item then begins immediately.

Smelting stops under any of four conditions:

When the furnace runs out of smeltable items: That is, the input slot becomes empty.
The furnace runs out of fuel: The fuel input slot is empty, and the current fuel item is fully consumed (that is, the fuel gauge becomes empty).
The output slot becomes full: Either the slot has a full stack of the output, or the output contains the wrong output item for the current input item (for example, if the output contains iron ingots, but the input contains raw gold). In this case, smelting (but not fuel consumption) is paused until the output slot becomes available (usually because items were removed by either a player or a hopper). If a fuel item burns out in this condition, a new one is not used until the output slot is again available.
The furnace is broken: The contents of all the slots, any accumulated experience, and the furnace itself are dropped. The currently-burning fuel item is lost since it is removed from the fuel slot before burning begins. The furnace block itself may not be dropped if it was destroyed by an explosion.

If smelting stops while a fuel item is still burning (a normal occurrence), the furnace continues to run visually but no more input items are processed. If the fuel has been exhausted (and the fuel gauge is empty) when an item has been partly smelted, the smelting progress is undone at double speed and the item remains in the input stack.

Smelting will be suspended if players move far enough away from the furnace (including going to another dimension) that simulation stops in the chunk the furnace is in. It resumes when a player returns.

If the player sleeps in a bed while a furnace is smelting items, the furnace's progress remains the same as if the bed had not been used and no additional time had passed. This is because when a player sleeps in a bed, no time actually passes; the game simply sets the time of day to morning.

The furnace keeps track of experience for each item as smelting is completed for it, accumulating it in a hidden counter. It remembers the total earned experience even if a hopper is used to remove the items from the output slot. This earned experience is awarded to the next player who uses the interface to remove items manually, after which the counter is reset (if the player takes some of the output but leaves some in the slot, the experience corresponding to those items is retained by the furnace and not awarded to the player).

Recipes[]

All smelting recipes can be used in the furnace, but only subsets are available in the blast furnace and smoker, when available they will burn twice as fast (5 seconds or 100 game ticks), but will use the same amount of fuel.

For fractional experience values, first multiply this value by the number of smelted items removed from the furnace, then award the player the whole-number part, and if there is a fractional part remaining, this represents the chance of an additional experience point.

For example, when smelting 1 coal ore and removing the coal, the value is 0.1, so every ten coal you remove grants you one experience point on average.
When smelting 5 sea pickles and removing all 5 lime dye, the value is 0.2 × 5 = 1, so this grants only 1 point.
The fractional experience stays within the furnace when the final total is not an integer, so the leftover experience is attributed to the next round of smelting.

Foods[]

All food recipes can be used in a furnace or smoker. Food can alternatively be cooked on a campfire, which doesn't require any fuel and takes 30 seconds or 600 game ticks to cook an item, which is faster (when cooking at the maximum capacity of 4 items at a time) than a furnace, but this doesn't award any experience and is slower than a smoker.

Food
Product	Ingredient	Exp	Description
Baked Potato	Potato	0.35	Fills 5 (), while raw fills 1 ().
Dried Kelp	Kelp	0.1	Fills 1 (), while uncooked kelp is inedible. Used to craft dried kelp blocks.
Steak	Raw Beef	0.35	Fills 8 (), while raw fills 3 ().
Cooked Porkchop	Raw Porkchop	0.35	Fills 8 (), while raw fills 3 ().
Cooked Mutton	Raw Mutton	0.35	Fills 6 (), while raw fills 2 ().
Cooked Chicken	Raw Chicken	0.35	Fills 6 (), while raw fills 2 () and has a 30% chance to give the Hunger status effect.
Cooked Rabbit	Raw Rabbit	0.35	Fills 5 (), while raw fills 3 ().
Cooked Cod	Raw Cod	0.35	Fills 5 (), while raw fills 2 ().
Cooked Salmon	Raw Salmon	0.35	Fills 6 (), while raw fills 2 ().

Ores[]

All ore recipes can be used in a furnace or blast furnace.

Product	Ingredient	Exp	Description
Iron Ingot	Raw Iron	0.7	Used to craft various items, including blast furnaces, anvils, iron blocks, iron nuggets, rails, buckets, cauldrons, chains, compasses, crossbows, flint and steels, heavy weighted pressure plates, hoppers, iron trapdoors, minecarts, pistons, shears, shields, iron armor, iron tools, stonecutters and tripwire hooks.
Copper Ingot	Raw Copper	0.7	Used to craft various items, including spyglasses, lightning rods, and copper blocks.
Gold Ingot	Raw Gold	1	Used to craft various items, including netherite ingots, gold blocks, golden apples, gold nuggets, clocks, golden armor, golden tools, powered rails and light weighted pressure plates. Also used as a currency for bartering.
Gold Ingot	Nether Gold Ore	1	Used to craft various items, and as a currency for bartering with piglins. Nether gold ore can be obtained only by mining with a Silk Touch pickaxe.
Netherite Scrap	Ancient Debris	2	Used to craft netherite ingots, which can be used to upgrade diamond gear and craft netherite blocks as well as lodestones.

The following additional ores can be smelted, but it's more efficient to mine them with an appropriate pickaxe. In most cases mining them saves fuel and yields more product and experience, especially if the pickaxe has a Fortune enchantment. Smelting them, though, allows obtaining them from an automatic device. The ore blocks themselves can be obtained only via the Silk Touch enchantment.

Product	Ingredient	Exp	Description
Redstone Dust	Redstone Ore	0.3	Used to craft various items and redstone blocks, brewing, or placed as redstone wire. When normally mined drops 4–5 redstone and 1–5.
Coal	Coal Ore	0.1	Used as a fuel, and to craft torches, campfires and coal blocks. When normally mined drops 1 coal and 0–2.
Emerald	Emerald Ore	1	Used for trading, and to craft emerald blocks. When normally mined drops 1 emerald and 3–7.
Lapis Lazuli	Lapis Lazuli Ore	0.2	Used for enchanting and for crafting blue dyes and lapis lazuli blocks. When normally mined drops 4–8 lapis lazuli and 2–5.
Diamond	Diamond Ore	1	Used to craft various items, enchanting tables, jukeboxes and diamond blocks. When normally mined drops 1 diamond and 3–7.
Nether Quartz	Nether Quartz Ore	0.2	Used to craft various items and quartz blocks. When normally mined drops 1 nether quartz and 2–5.
Iron Ingot	Iron Ore	0.7	Used to craft various items.
Copper Ingot	Copper Ore	0.7	Used to craft various items.
Gold Ingot	Gold Ore	1	Used to craft various items, and as a currency for bartering with piglins.

Gear[]

These recipes can be used in a furnace or blast furnace to recycle unneeded gear (tools, weapons, armor and horse armor).

Product	Ingredient	Exp	Description
Iron Nugget	Tools, armor and horse armor made from iron or chainmail armor	0.1	Can be crafted into lanterns, chains, or iron ingots.
Gold Nugget	Tools, armor and horse armor made from gold	0.1	Can be crafted into golden carrots, glistering melons, or gold ingots.

Furnace-only[]

These recipes are exclusive to the furnace.

Product	Ingredient	Exp	Description
Stone	Cobblestone	0.1	Used as a building material. Also used for crafting stone pressure plates, stone buttons, stone bricks, grindstones, stonecutters, redstone repeaters and comparators. Can be smelted into smooth stone.
Smooth Stone	Stone	0.1	Used as a building material. Also used for crafting smooth stone slabs, armor stands, and blast furnaces.
Cracked Stone Bricks	Stone Bricks	0.1	Decoration block.
Deepslate	Cobbled Deepslate	0.1	Decoration block.
Cracked Deepslate Bricks	Deepslate Bricks	0.1	Decoration block.
Cracked Deepslate Tiles	Deepslate Tiles	0.1	Decoration block.
Smooth Sandstone	Sandstone	0.1	Used as a building material. Also used for crafting smooth sandstone slabs and stairs.
Smooth Red Sandstone	Red Sandstone	0.1	Used as a building material. Also used for crafting smooth red sandstone slabs and stairs.
Cracked Nether Bricks	Nether Bricks	0.1	Decoration block.
Smooth Basalt	Basalt	0.1	Decoration block.
Cracked Polished Blackstone Bricks	Polished Blackstone Bricks	0.1	Decoration block.
Smooth Quartz	Block of Quartz	0.1	Used as a building material. Also used for crafting smooth quartz slabs and stairs.
Terracotta	Clay	0.35	Decoration block. Also used for crafting dyed terracotta. Can be smelted into glazed terracotta.
Glazed Terracotta	Dyed Terracotta	0.1	Decoration block. Can be pushed by pistons but does not stick.
Glass	Sand	0.1	Used to make transparent structures. Also used to craft glass panes, glass bottles, stained glass, end crystals, daylight detectors, and beacons.
Sponge	Wet Sponge	0.15	Used to soak up water. Drying a sponge allows it to be reused. If an empty bucket is in the fuel slot when smelting finishes, it becomes a water bucket. Wet sponges can also be instantly dried when placed in the Nether.
Charcoal	Log Wood Stripped Log Stripped Wood	0.15	Used to craft torches, soul torches, campfires and fire charges, and as fuel for smelting or for a minecart with furnace‌^{[JE only]}. Input must be an Overworld log or wood, not sticks, planks, or stems.
Popped Chorus Fruit	Chorus Fruit	0.1	Used to make purpur blocks and end rods. Cannot be eaten.
Lime Dye	Sea Pickle	0.1	Used as a dye.
Green Dye	Cactus	JE:1^[1] BE:0.2	Used as a dye.
Brick	Clay Ball	0.3	Used to make bricks and flower pots.
Nether Brick	Netherrack	0.1	Used to make nether bricks, nether brick fences and red nether bricks.

Fuel[]

There are multiple fuels that can be used to smelt items. The type of fuel that should be used depends on the number of items in question.

For larger jobs, a single lava bucket or a block of coal can smelt more items than can fit in the furnace, a lava bucket being able to smelt 100 blocks and a block of coal being able to smelt 80 —both input and output are limited to a maximum of a stack of 64 items (with some items not being able to be stacked or only being possible to stack 16 of them).

Items that can be used as fuel in all types of furnaces[]

This article is a work in progress.

Please help in the expansion or creation of this article by expanding or improving it. The talk page may contain suggestions.


Fuel	Burning time (seconds) ^{[note 1]}	Number of operations per fuel	Number of operations per stack (64) of fuel ^{[note 2]}	Seconds per log ^{[note 3]}	Seconds per bamboo ^{[note 4]}	Amount needed to smelt a stack (64) of items	Notes
Lava Bucket	1000 16:40 20000 ticks	100	100	None used	None used	0.64	If a lava bucket is used as fuel, an empty bucket remains in the fuel slot.
Block of Coal	800 13:20 16000 ticks	80	5120	None used	None used	0.8
Dried Kelp Block	200 3:20 4000 ticks	20	1280	None used	None used	3.2
Blaze Rod	120 2:00 2400 ticks	12	768	None used	None used	5 ¹⁄₃
Coal	80 1:20 1600 ticks	8	512	None used	None used	8
Charcoal	80 1:20 1600 ticks	8	512	70 ^{[note 5]}	None used	8
Any Boat	60 1200 ticks	6	6	48	2 ²⁄₃	10 ²⁄₃
Any Boat with Chest	60 1200 ticks	6	6	18 ⁶⁄₁₃ (~18.46)	1 ¹⁄₃₉ (~1.03)	10 ²⁄₃
Bamboo Mosaic	15 300 ticks	1.5	96	None used	3 ¹⁄₃	42 ²⁄₃
Bamboo Mosaic Slab	7.5 150 ticks	0.75	48	60	3 ¹⁄₃	85 ¹⁄₃	‌^{[Java Edition only]}
Bamboo Mosaic Slab	15 300 ticks ^{[note 6]}	1.5	96	120 ^{[note 6]}	6 ²⁄₃ ^{[note 6]}	42 ²⁄₃	‌^{[Bedrock Edition only]}
Bamboo Mosaic Stairs	15 300 ticks	1.5	96	None used	3 ¹⁄₃	42 ²⁄₃
Bee Nest	15 300 ticks	1.5	96	None used	None used	42 ²⁄₃	‌^{[Bedrock Edition only]}
Beehive	15 300 ticks	1.5	96	10	⁵⁄₉ (0.5)	42 ²⁄₃	‌^{[Bedrock Edition only]}
Chiseled Bookshelf	15 300 ticks	1.5	96	2 ¹³⁄₁₆ (2.8125)	⁴⁄₉ (0.4)	42 ²⁄₃
Block of Bamboo or Block of Stripped Bamboo	15 300 ticks	1.5	96	None used	1 ²⁄₃	42 ²⁄₃	‌^{[Java Edition only]}
Overworld Log or Stripped Log	15 300 ticks	1.5	96	15	None used	42 ²⁄₃
Overworld Wood or Stripped Wood	15 300 ticks	1.5	96	11.25	None used	42 ²⁄₃
Overworld Planks	15 300 ticks	1.5	96	60	3 ¹⁄₃	42 ²⁄₃
Overworld Wooden Slab	7.5 150 ticks	0.75	48	60	3 ¹⁄₃	85 ¹⁄₃	‌^{[Java Edition only]}
Overworld Wooden Slab	15 300 ticks ^{[note 6]}	1.5	96	120 ^{[note 6]}	6 ²⁄₃ ^{[note 6]}	42 ²⁄₃	‌^{[Bedrock Edition only]}
Overworld Wooden Stairs	15 300 ticks	1.5	96	40	2 ²⁄₉ (2.2)	42 ²⁄₃
Overworld Wooden Pressure Plate	15 300 ticks	1.5	96	30	1 ²⁄₃	42 ²⁄₃
Overworld Wooden Button	5 100 ticks	0.5	32	20	1 ¹⁄₉ (1.1)	128	‌^{[Java Edition only]}
Overworld Wooden Button	15 300 ticks	1.5	96	60	3 ¹⁄₃	42 ²⁄₃	‌^{[Bedrock Edition only]}
Overworld Wooden Trapdoor	15 300 ticks	1.5	96	20	1 ¹⁄₉ (1.1)	42 ²⁄₃
Overworld Fence Gate	15 300 ticks	1.5	96	15	¹⁵⁄₁₇ (~0.88)	42 ²⁄₃
Overworld Wooden Fence	15 300 ticks	1.5	96	36	¹⁵⁄₂₂ (0.681)	42 ²⁄₃
Mangrove Roots	15 300 ticks	1.5	96	None used	None used	42 ²⁄₃	‌^{[Java Edition only]}
Ladder	15 300 ticks	1.5	96	51 ³⁄₇ (~51.43)	3 ³⁄₁₄ (~3.21)	42 ²⁄₃	‌^{[Java Edition only]}
Crafting Table	15 300 ticks	1.5	96	15	⁵⁄₆ (0.83)	42 ²⁄₃
Cartography Table	15 300 ticks	1.5	96	15	⁵⁄₆ (0.83)	42 ²⁄₃
Fletching Table	15 300 ticks	1.5	96	15	⁵⁄₆ (0.83)	42 ²⁄₃
Smithing Table	15 300 ticks	1.5	96	15	⁵⁄₆ (0.83)	42 ²⁄₃
Loom	15 300 ticks	1.5	96	30	1 ²⁄₃	42 ²⁄₃
Bookshelf	15 300 ticks	1.5	96	10	⁵⁄₉ (0.5)	42 ²⁄₃
Lectern	15 300 ticks	1.5	96	7.5	⁵⁄₁₂ (0.416)	42 ²⁄₃
Composter	15 300 ticks	1.5	96	17 ¹⁄₇ (~17.14)	²⁰⁄₂₁ (~0.95)	42 ²⁄₃
Chest	15 300 ticks	1.5	96	7.5	⁵⁄₁₂ (0.416)	42 ²⁄₃
Trapped Chest	15 300 ticks	1.5	96	6 ⁶⁄₇ (~6.86)	⁶⁰⁄₁₅₇ (~0.38)	42 ²⁄₃
Barrel	15 300 ticks	1.5	96	8 ⁴⁄₇ (~8.57)	¹⁰⁄₂₁ (~0.48)	42 ²⁄₃
Daylight Detector	15 300 ticks	1.5	96	40	2 ²⁄₉ (2.2)	42 ²⁄₃
Jukebox	15 300 ticks	1.5	96	7.5	⁵⁄₁₂ (0.416)	42 ²⁄₃
Note Block	15 300 ticks	1.5	96	7.5	⁵⁄₁₂ (0.416)	42 ²⁄₃
Any Banner	15 300 ticks	1.5	24	120	7.5	42 ²⁄₃
Crossbow	15 300 ticks	1.5	1.5	no\|26 ²⁄₃	1 ²³⁄₃₇ (1.621)	42 ²⁄₃	‌^{[Java Edition only]}
Crossbow	10 200 ticks	1	1	17 ⁷⁄₉ (17.7)	1 ³⁄₃₇ (1.081)	64	‌^{[Bedrock Edition only]}
Bow	15 300 ticks	1.5	1.5	40	2.5	42 ²⁄₃	‌^{[Java Edition only]}
Bow	10 200 ticks	1	1	no\|26 ²⁄₃	1 ²⁄₃	64	‌^{[Bedrock Edition only]}
Fishing Rod	15 300 ticks	1.5	1.5	40	2.5	42 ²⁄₃
Overworld Wooden Door	10 200 ticks	1	64	20	1 ¹⁄₉ (1.1)	64
Overworld Sign	10 200 ticks	1	16	18 ⁶⁄₁₃ (~18.46)	¹⁰⁄₂₉ (~0.34)	64
Hanging Sign	10 200 ticks	1	16	10	1 ¹⁄₉ (1.1)	64
Wooden Pickaxe	10 200 ticks	1	1	10	⁴⁄₇ (~0.57)	64
Wooden Shovel	10 200 ticks	1	1	20	1 ³⁄₁₇ (~1.18)	64
Wooden Hoe	10 200 ticks	1	1	13 ¹⁄₃	¹⁰⁄₁₃ (~0.77)	64
Wooden Axe	10 200 ticks	1	1	10	⁴⁄₇ (~0.57)	64
Wooden Sword	10 200 ticks	1	1	16	¹⁰⁄₁₁ (0.90)	64
Bowl	5 100 ticks	0.5	32	26 ²⁄₃	1 ¹³⁄₂₇ (1.481)	128	‌^{[Java Edition only]}
Bowl	10 200 ticks	1	64	53 ¹⁄₃	2 ²⁶⁄₂₇ (2.962)	64	‌^{[Bedrock Edition only]}
Any Sapling	5 100 ticks	0.5	32	None used	None used	128
Stick	5 100 ticks	0.5	32	40	2.5	128
Dead Bush	5 100 ticks	0.5	32	None used	None used	128
Azalea	5 100 ticks	0.5	32	None used	None used	128
Any Wool	5 100 ticks	0.5	32	None used	None used	128	‌^{[Java Edition only]}
Any Carpet	3.35 67 ticks	0.335	21.44	None used	None used	191 ³⁄₆₇ (~191.04)	‌^{[Java Edition only]}
Bamboo	2.5 50 ticks	0.25	16	None used	2.5	256
Scaffolding	2.5 50 ticks	0.25	16	None used	2.5	256

↑ All times given are for fuel burned in a furnace. When burned in a blast furnace or smoker, fuel is burned twice as fast but produces the same number of items.
↑ Items in red are not stackable, items in yellow only stack up to 16.
↑ Calculated as the burning time in seconds divided by the number of logs used to make one fuel when all wood ingredients are made from logs. Items in red are not made entirely of wood.
↑ Calculated as the burning time in seconds divided by the amount of bamboo used to make one fuel when all wood ingredient are made from bamboo. Items in red are not made entirely of bamboo.
↑ 80 seconds of fuel per log, but 10 seconds are needed to smelt the charcoal, so the net time is 70 seconds.
↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Wooden slabs have the same burn time as planks due to a bug; see MCPE-94368.

Hopper automation[]

Automated furnace

The smelting process can be automated with hoppers on the top and bottom of the furnace. For larger smelting jobs, a third hopper on the side of the furnace can feed in fuel and, in case of lava being used as fuel, any empty buckets come out of the bottom hopper. This automatically feeds and empties the furnace so that different materials can be smelted in the same batch with no loss.

Whenever a hopper or minecart with hopper removes items from a furnace, any experience earned from cooking or smelting the removed items is saved in the furnace and awarded to the next player who manually removes an item from the furnace's output slot. This saved experience is in addition to that earned for the manually removed item(s).

Achievements[]

Icon		Achievement	In-game description	Actual requirements (if different)	Gamerscore earned	Trophy type (PS4)
PS4	Other	Achievement	In-game description	Actual requirements (if different)	Gamerscore earned	Trophy type (PS4)
		Acquire Hardware	Smelt an iron ingot	Pick up an iron ingot from a furnace output.	15G	Bronze
		Delicious Fish	Catch and cook a fish!	Pick up a cooked cod after cooking it in a Furnace, Smoker, Campfire, or Soul Campfire. Doesn't work if the block used is hooked up to a hopper, as the player is not getting the item directly from the output.	15G	Silver
		Pork Chop	Cook and eat a pork chop.	—	10G	Bronze
		Renewable Energy	Smelt wood trunks using charcoal to make more charcoal.	Smelt a wooden log with charcoal as the fuel.	10G	Bronze
		Rabbit Season	Cook and Eat Rabbit Meat	—	15G	Bronze
		Dry Spell	Dry a sponge in a furnace	—	15G	Bronze
		Super Fuel	Power a Furnace with Lava	—	20G	Bronze

Advancements[]

Icon	Advancement	In-game description	Parent	Actual requirements (if different)	Resource location
	Acquire Hardware	Smelt an Iron Ingot	Getting an Upgrade	Have an iron ingot in your inventory.	`story/smelt_iron`

History[]

Java Edition Indev
0.31	20100129	Flint and steel can now be used to smelt ores.^[2]
20100219		Furnaces have been added to replace the cooking/smelting function of flint and steel.
20100223		The first smeltable item has been added, cobblestone, which can be smelted into stone.
Java Edition
1.3.1	12w18a	Wooden tools now work in furnaces as one full furnace use.
	12w22a	Smelting various ores in furnaces now reward players with experience points.
	12w22a	When using lava for fuel, the player can now get the bucket back.
1.5	13w02a	Hoppers can now be used in conjunction with furnaces, allowing for automatic smelting.
1.8	14w04a	When a furnace runs out of fuel, the smelting progress now rewinds at double speed.
1.11	16w33a	More items can now be used as fuel: wool, carpets, ladders, wooden buttons, bows, fishing rods, signs, bowls, wooden doors and boats.
1.13	18w06a	The smelting GUI now includes a recipe tab, which allows players to know how to smelt previously-smelted items, automatically fill in the item to be smelted and filter out the recipes to what they can make from their inventory.
		Custom recipes are now loaded from data packs in data/(namespace)/recipes/(name).json.
		Turning off the vanilla data pack now also removes all recipes.
	18w07a	Dried kelp blocks have been added as a new fuel.
	18w09a	When the output of a furnace is extracted with a hopper, the experience now accumulates inside the furnace, and is released the next time a player takes the output.^[3]
1.14	18w43a	Added bamboo, which can now be used as a fuel.
	18w43a	Dead bushes can now be used as a fuel, smelting .5 items.
	18w45a	Added scaffolding, which can now be used as a fuel.
	18w50a	Ores can now be smelted using a blast furnace and food using a smoker.
	19w02a	Items can now be smelted using a campfire.
1.15	19w37a	Boats used as fuel now smelt 6 items instead of 1.
1.15	Pre-release 1	Scaffolding used as fuel now smelts 2 items instead of 0.25.
1.17	21w05a	Added azalea and flowering azalea, which can now be used as a fuel.
1.19	22w11a	Scaffolding now smelts 0.25 items again.^[4]
	22w11a	Added mangrove roots and all types of mangrove, which can be used as fuel.
	22w12a	Added boat with chest, which can be used as a fuel.
	22w12a	Mangrove fences, fence gates, and boats can now be used as a fuel.^[5]
	?	Mangrove logs, wood, and their stripped variations can now used to make charcoal.
1.20 (Experimental)	22w42a	Added chiseled bookshelf, Overworld hanging signs and all types of bamboo, which can be used as fuel.
	22w44a	Bamboo mosaic, fences, and fence gates can now be used as a fuel.
	22w45a	Added block of bamboo and their stripped variant, which can now be used as fuel.
	23w07a	Added all types of cherry, which can be used as fuel.
	1.19.4-pre1	Cherry logs, wood, their stripped variations, and cherry saplings can now be used as a fuel.^[6]
	1.19.4-pre1	Cherry logs, wood, and their stripped variations can now be used to make charcoal.^[7]
Pocket Edition Alpha
v0.3.2		Furnaces have been added, which means that every available block and item can now be gathered, crafted or smelted into (no more unlimited items).
v0.8.0	?	Wooden tools can now be used as fuel.
v0.8.0	?	Lava buckets can now be placed to smelt items (100 items).
v0.11.0	build 1	Added boats and fishing rods, which can now be used as fuel.
v0.12.1	build 1	Added blaze rods, which can now be used as fuel.
v0.13.0	build 1	Added note blocks and daylight sensors, which can now be used as fuel.
v0.16.0	?	The furnace's interface has been changed.
Pocket Edition
1.0.0	alpha 0.17.0.1	Added new furnace UI for classic UI.
Bedrock Edition
1.2.0	beta 1.2.0.2	Added jukeboxes and banners, which can now be used as fuel.
1.4.0	beta 1.2.13.8	Added stripped logs, which can now be used as fuel.
1.4.0	beta 1.2.14.2	Added dried kelp blocks, which can now be used as fuel.
1.8.0	beta 1.8.0.8	Added bamboo and scaffolding, which can now be used as fuel.
1.10.0	beta 1.10.0.3	Dead bushes can now be used as fuel.
1.11.0	beta 1.11.0.1	Items can now be smelted using a campfire.
		Signs can now be used as fuel.
		Ores can now be smelted using a blast furnace and food using a smoker.
New Nintendo 3DS Edition
1.1.06		Smelting various ores in furnaces now rewards players with experience points.

Trivia[]

A wooden tool burns the same regardless of its remaining durability. A used-up tool is just as effective as fuel as a new tool.
"Smelting" is a broad term in the context of Minecraft while in the real world, smelting has a more precise definition.^[8]

References[]

↑ MC-210211 — Smelting cactus gives too much experience since 1.13
↑ "Crafting and Mining in Minecraft"(archive) – Nizzotch on YouTube, January 29, 2010
↑ "[MC-7046] Furnace with hopper not giving XP - Jira" – Mojira, January 11, 2013.
↑ "[MC-165990] Crafting bamboo into scaffolding gives you 8 times the furnace fuel for free - Jira" – Mojira, November 21, 2019.
↑ "[MC-249316] Mangrove fence, fence gate and boat cannot be used for fuel - Jira" – Mojira, March 20, 2022.
↑ MC-260193 — resolved as "Fixed".
↑ MC-260192 — resolved as "Fixed".
↑ "Block of the Week: Furnace" – Minecraft.net, September 15, 2017

Gameplay

[2] All times given are for fuel burned in a furnace. When burned in a blast furnace or smoker, fuel is burned twice as fast but produces the same number of items.

[3] Items in red are not stackable, items in yellow only stack up to 16.

[4] Calculated as the burning time in seconds divided by the number of logs used to make one fuel when all wood ingredients are made from logs. Items in red are not made entirely of wood.

[5] Calculated as the burning time in seconds divided by the amount of bamboo used to make one fuel when all wood ingredient are made from bamboo. Items in red are not made entirely of bamboo.

[6] 80 seconds of fuel per log, but 10 seconds are needed to smelt the charcoal, so the net time is 70 seconds.

[MCPE-94368-7] ↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Wooden slabs have the same burn time as planks due to a bug; see MCPE-94368.

[1] MC-210211 — Smelting cactus gives too much experience since 1.13

[0129_demo-8] "Crafting and Mining in Minecraft"(archive) – Nizzotch on YouTube, January 29, 2010

[9] "[MC-7046] Furnace with hopper not giving XP - Jira" – Mojira, January 11, 2013.

[10] "[MC-165990] Crafting bamboo into scaffolding gives you 8 times the furnace fuel for free - Jira" – Mojira, November 21, 2019.

[11] "[MC-249316] Mangrove fence, fence gate and boat cannot be used for fuel - Jira" – Mojira, March 20, 2022.

[12] MC-260193 — resolved as "Fixed".

[13] MC-260192 — resolved as "Fixed".

[14] "Block of the Week: Furnace" – Minecraft.net, September 15, 2017

[1]