While you progress in Valheim, you will eventually come across different kinds of metals that you can mine.
These metals will need to be smelted in order to be used for crafting some of the better gear that you will be using.
To smelt metals, you will first need to create a Smelter that is fueled by Coal in order to melt down your metal into bars.
How to Get Smelter?
You can unlock the Smelter recipe by first obtaining a Surtling Core, this will allow you to build it once you have the right number of materials for it.
To build a Smelter, you will need to use 20 Stone and 5 Surtling Cores for each one that you intend on building.
Smelter placement can be placed almost anywhere, including solid ground or on stone structures, and will require the proper amount of space, or else an invalid placement notification will appear.
If you try to melt metal and find that the Smelter is not working, be sure to make sure you also place Charcoal inside to allow it to work.
You can find several ways to farm Surtling Cores with our Valheim Surtling Core Farming Guide.
How to Use Smelter?
There are 3 holes in the smelter which are all related to its function and you will need to place metal and Coal in specific parts of it before it releases the final item from its center.
To add metal to a Smelter, you need to head over to the left side where you will find a hole that allows you to place metal in.
Place the metal by interacting with the whole and it will start to stack up to 10 ores to be melted down over time.
Without Coal, the metal will not be melted and nothing will happen further unless you provide it with the means of burning the metal.
Adding Coal
Once you place metal, you will need to fuel the Smelter which can be done by heading to the right side of it and placing interacting with the hole on the right.
Coal will not cause the Smelter to start burning unless there is metal inside it and in the event that all the metal has been melted, the Coal will stop being consumed.
You can only fuel the Smelter with Coal and no other resource can be used as of now to start the melting process.
Smelting Process
The Smelting ratio is 31 seconds for 1 metal and each Coal burns for 15 seconds, requiring 3 Coal for 1 metal ore and 5 for 2.
It is best that you filled the Smelter up with both metal ore and Coal so that you can leave it to melt while you can do other tasks.
Types of Metal (Smelting Ore)
You will progress through different tiers of metal in Valheim and eventually need them for the many items and structures that you will be crafting or building.
The Smelter is used for the following:
- Smelt Copper
- Smelt Tin
- Smelt Iron
- Smelt Silver
- Smelt Black Metal
- Smelt Flametal
Smelting Tips
It appears that there is no Smelter smoke produced that can cause you to suffocate indoors and it is safe to place them on Stone Floors.
Having a Smelter setup of 2 or more can greatly increase the rate at which you can produce metal bars for use later on.
You can make a Smelting house or Smelting room at your base to have an area focused on smelting the metal that you need.
Currently, there is no other method of smelting faster and you can instead build multiple Smelters to increase production.
How to Get Coal in Valheim?
To smelt, you will need a lot of Coal and this is best done with the many methods of Coal farming in the game.
You can get Coal by burning wood in a Charcoal Kiln, killing Surtlings, Looting chests as well as overcooking food.
For a more detailed guide on Coal, farming check out our Valheim Coal Farming Guide.
Verdict
During your earlier adventures in Valheim you will come across Surtling Cores and may try to decide between building a Smelter or Kiln.
You can use the Surtling Core (which some call Smelter Core) to create a Charcoal Kiln first for Coal production and farm Surtling Cores later on for a Smelter.
If you want to melt metal right away, you could demolish the Charcoal Kiln after producing Coal and craft a Smelter but be warned, sometimes not all resources are returned.
There is a Smelter bug that allows you to place more than the allotted maximum number of resources which happens when there is lagging in the server or your client.
