Streamline Your Smelting with the Raw Block Smelting Datapack
Mining trips in Minecraft often leave your inventory bursting with raw copper, raw iron, and raw gold. Crafting them into compact raw blocks is a fantastic way to save space, but when it’s time to turn those resources into usable ingots, the process can feel unnecessarily tedious. You have to break down each block back into nine raw items, feed them into a furnace one by one, and then wait. The Raw Block Smelting datapack sweeps away that extra step, letting you toss entire raw blocks directly into a furnace or blast furnace for a much smoother workflow.
What This Datapack Does
Raw Block Smelting introduces a simple but powerful recipe expansion. Instead of being forced to decraft raw ore blocks, you can now place a raw copper block, raw gold block, or raw iron block straight into any furnace or blast furnace. The smelting time and experience yield are perfectly balanced: smelting one raw block takes exactly the same time and grants the same total XP as smelting nine individual raw items into ingots. This means you never lose efficiency, you just skip the repetitive inventory juggling. The datapack is purely about convenience, keeping the vanilla balance intact while removing a clunky crafting bottleneck.
Supported Blocks and Furnace Types
Version 1.0 of the datapack covers the three raw ore blocks introduced in the Caves & Cliffs update. Both standard furnaces and blast furnaces recognize the new recipes, so you can choose the faster blast furnace if you have one set up. Here is exactly what gets unlocked:
- Raw Copper Block smelts or blasts into a Copper Block
- Raw Gold Block smelts or blasts into a Gold Block
- Raw Iron Block smelts or blasts into an Iron Block
Because the output is the full storage block, you can immediately use it for building, beacons, or further crafting without ever handling individual ingots. It’s a small change that dramatically reduces the number of furnace interactions during bulk processing.
Why This Matters for Your Survival World
In large-scale mining operations, inventory management becomes a game in itself. Many players craft raw blocks on the go to keep their storage tidy, but later they face a mountain of blocks that need to be converted back into ingots. The Raw Block Smelting datapack eliminates that repetitive decrafting cycle. You can drop a stack of raw iron blocks into a super-smelter array and collect iron blocks directly, ready for hopper-fed storage systems. It also makes blast furnaces even more valuable, since the faster smelting speed now applies to the compact blocks, cutting your wait time significantly without sacrificing any experience points.
For those who enjoy fine-tuning their modded experience, installing datapacks can sometimes feel like a chore, especially when juggling multiple worlds. That’s where a capable launcher becomes a real asset. The foxygame.net launcher makes the entire process refreshingly simple, offering a modern interface where you can browse and install datapacks like Raw Block Smelting directly from the menu, without ever digging through .minecraft folders. Its flexibility keeps your modded profiles organized, so you can switch between vanilla and enhanced gameplay with just a couple of clicks.
Installation and Compatibility
Adding the Raw Block Smelting datapack to your world is straightforward. Download the .zip file and place it inside the datapacks folder of your world save. If you’re creating a new world, you can add it during world creation under the “Data Packs” menu. The pack works in singleplayer, multiplayer servers, and realms as long as the world owner activates it. No resource packs or mod loaders are required—this is a pure datapack, so it runs on vanilla Minecraft mechanics. It is compatible with version 1.17 and above, aligning with the introduction of raw ore blocks.
If you run into any issues, the pack’s developer encourages you to check the included .zip file for an Item Number and leave a comment describing the problem. This makes troubleshooting much faster, especially if other datapacks or server plugins might interfere with custom recipes.
Balanced Gameplay and Future Updates
A common concern with quality-of-life datapacks is that they might upset the game’s balance. Raw Block Smelting carefully preserves the core mechanics: the fuel cost, smelting duration, and experience orbs are all identical to processing nine raw items. The only thing that changes is the input slot. This keeps the datapack fair for survival purists while rewarding players who plan their storage efficiently. The changelog for version 1.0 confirms the three supported conversions, and future updates could potentially expand to other compactable resources if the community requests them.
Quick Changelog Overview
- Version 1.0: Initial release adding smelting and blasting recipes for raw copper, raw gold, and raw iron blocks into their respective storage blocks.
Final Thoughts
The Raw Block Smelting datapack is a perfect example of a small tweak that respects vanilla Minecraft while sanding down a rough edge. By letting you smelt raw ore blocks directly into storage blocks, it frees you from repetitive crafting and lets you focus on building, exploring, and expanding your world. Whether you’re running a massive industrial smelting setup or just want a tidier early-game experience, this datapack delivers noticeable convenience without any downside. Pair it with a blast furnace array, and you’ll wonder why this wasn’t a default feature from the start.