If you want to get anywhere in Stardew Valley, you’re going to need to engage with the fruits of the earth. Ores in this game require refinement in order to make them useful, and that means you are going to smelt them. A furnace is the earliest and most consistent method of mineral refinement in Stardew Valley, being given to you quite early and being required for the first parts of the game.
Furnaces are large, black furniture decals which can be interacted with. While holding specific ore types (or a bouquet of flowers), a player with coal in their inventory can refine materials within the machine.
How to Get the Furnace
The furnace recipe is obtained the morning after you collect your first copper ore. This copper can be mined, obtained from a fishing treasure chest, or purchasing it for the man himself. To grab the recipe, exit the farmhouse at any point in the morning. You can also get one for free by completing the Blacksmith’s Bundle in the Boiler Room, though that realistically requires a furnace to complete in the first place.
Getting the copper ore in the first place isn’t too difficult. Copper can be bought for a measly 75g at Clint during year one, but you’ll more conventionally find Copper on the first 40 Mine levels. You can also get lucky and simply break barrels and geodes or dig up artifact spots in the mines to get one.
Once you get one, all you have to do is finish out your day and go to sleep. In the morning, Clint will know that you’ve found some ore and talk to you as you leave your home.
It has to be in the morning, however. If you’re a couch potato and leave in the afternoon, Clint won’t be there to greet you.
How to Use the Furnace
In order to use a furnace, hold an ore of the correct material while you have coal in your inventory. Interact with the furnace with the ore and it will eat up the ore and the coal needed to smelt it.
Seven ores – and one unfortunate set of flowers – can be placed into a furnace to create a refined material. These items include:
- Bouquet for a Wilted Bouquet.
- 5 Copper Ore for a Copper Bar
- 1 Quartz for a Refined Quartz
- 1 Fire Quartz for 3 Refined Quartz
- 5 Iron Ore for 1 Iron Bar
- 5 Gold Ore for 1 Gold Bar
- 5 Iridium Ore for 1 Iridium Bar
- 5 Radioactive Ore for 1 Radioactive Bar
The smelting times for these items range vastly, from 10 in-game minutes to 9 in-game hours. During that time, all you have to do is wait for the furnace to complete its work.
Tip: Furnaces Can Be Placed Outside Farm
Much like chests and other crafted furniture items, furnaces can be placed outside of the farm in other environments. This is usually useful for depositing ores as you leave and enter your daily mine excavations, rather than busying up your farm with extra crafting hubs that you don’t necessarily need.
Placing these devices outside of your farm is not usually as useful as holding chests elsewhere. While the big smelters can clutter up your home, they can’t hold much additional ore other than the one they are processing. This means you’ll probably need a chest by the mines too.
Expert Tip
Be careful! If an NPC walks through a crafted material, they’ll destroy it. This can happen on or off screen, and permanently deletes the item from the game. When placing your furnace or chest, be sure to place it off clearly established roads. You can be fairly safe placing it right next to the entrance of the mines or near the Adventuring League, but elsewhere can be risky.
