How many items are you smelting?
One item takes 200 ticks, or ten seconds, in an ordinary furnace. A blast furnace and a smoker halve that, but they burn the fuel twice as fast, so the amount of fuel is the same either way.
The short answer
For 64 items you need 8 coal, or 1 blocks of coal, or 1 lava bucket, or 43 planks.
Every fuel
A row that starts with Any covers a whole family: every plank burns the same, so there is no point listing sixty of them. Burn time left over at the end of a job is wasted, which is why a stack of items divides more neatly by coal than by lava.
Fuel, in items rather than ticks
A furnace spends ten seconds on each item. A fuel is worth whatever it can cover: coal handles eight items, a block of coal handles eighty, and a lava bucket handles a hundred. Anything left over when the job ends is simply wasted.
That waste is the whole reason to think about fuel at all. Smelting a single stack of 64 with lava throws away more than a third of the bucket. Eight coal covers it exactly. For big jobs the block of coal wins, because it is nine coal packed into one slot and burns for the full eighty items.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best fuel in Minecraft?
A block of coal, for almost every job. It smelts 80 items, stacks to 64, and is made from coal you already have. A lava bucket smelts 100 but does not stack, so a furnace array eats inventory slots. Dried kelp blocks are the renewable answer at 20 items each, and blaze rods at 12 are worth using if you have spares.
How many items does one coal smelt?
Eight. Coal and charcoal both burn for 1600 ticks, and one item takes 200 ticks, so a single coal covers eight items and a full stack of 64 coal covers 512. That is why a stack of ore and eight coal is such a common pairing.
Does a blast furnace use less fuel?
No. It smelts twice as fast but burns fuel twice as fast too, so the total fuel for a given number of items is identical. What you save is time, not coal.
Can I burn wooden tools and boats?
Yes, and it is a genuinely good use for junk wooden gear. Most wooden items burn for 200 ticks, which is exactly one item smelted, and boats burn longer. The table above lists every family the game accepts.
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