Best way to smelt flint and lime?

[JoLeo]

I know of three methods you can use to smelt these:

1. Put everything in a campfire, add fuel and wait.

2. Heat everything up, then take everything out and add it in one by one to prevent it from resetting its heat when one item is smelted.

3. Use a bloomery.

In my opinion, bloomerys require the least effort and fuel, but you will loose about 3 bricks, which I think is not too bad as with the cost of 6 charcoal and 24 flint you will still have a profit of 45 bricks. I would like to hear your opinion on what the best option is.

[Zane Mordien]

I had no clue you could use a bloomery. I just use the firepit method with a stack of brown coal. I go about my business and check on it from time to time. I guess if I was fuel poor or in a rush I could min max it but that hasn't been an issue. 

[StCatharines]

If not using Better Firepit then option 2 if you have nothing, and I mean nothing else to do.

Realistically, option 1. I tend to suggest just pitching a stack of charcoal into a firepit along with a stack of flint, and forget it.

[StCatharines]

1 minute ago, Zane Mordien said:

I had no clue you could use a bloomery.

Changed in 1.20.5:

On 3/18/2025 at 5:54 AM, Tyron said:

Tweak: Can now also cook flint in the Bloomery

 

Changelog here.

 

[JoLeo]

If you have a 24:24 ratio of coal:flint in a fire pit, but a 6:24 ratio in a bloomery, I think that these 18 coal you save are much more worth than the (average) loss of 3 bricks, or do you think different?

[StCatharines]

5 minutes ago, JoLeo said:

If you have a 24:24 ratio of coal:flint in a fire pit, but a 6:24 ratio in a bloomery, I think that these 18 coal you save are much more worth than the (average) loss of 3 bricks, or do you think different?

Fire pits are free and easy, and I already make giant amounts of charcoal. For me, it's a non-issue, especially since I'm making calcined flint to make fireclay and using bloomeries is using a portion of it up.

[LoveWyrm]

I didn't know the bloomery can do it, and I will from now on go for that. Coal is plentyful but it also taxes tools to mine them. Clay and flint tho?

A crappy shovel does the trick. 

Edit: Oh..right..charcoal works too.

Eh, charcoal's a pain tho.

Edited May 8, 2025 by LoveWyrm

[Zane Mordien]

Brown coal is typically easy to get so the bloomey is interesting but not for me.

[Sammael]

Goes without saying there are mods that kinda make calcinating flint less annoying, but would be nice to be able to put atleast a small stack (4-12) flints in a forge and blast 'em with few (2-3?) bits of coal and yield a pile o' calcined flint bits. Would be more realistic too, afaik what comes calcinating flint in real life. Alternatively crushing flint with a hammer or a pulverizer and then the pebbles go into a crucible on a campfire and get calcined through baking with coal - or allow putting the crucible on a forge (GUI for forge, anyone?). 

Edited May 9, 2025 by Sammael