If you’ve spent your first few hours in Enshrouded hacking at copper veins and hauling piles of raw ore back to your base, you’ve probably hit a wall pretty fast: you can’t do anything with that ore until you have a smelter. Figuring out how to make smelter Enshrouded unlocks almost all of the game’s mid-game progression, from better armor to stronger building materials to weapons that can take down even the toughest shrouded creatures. I fumbled through this step myself on my first playthrough, missing one key unlock requirement for hours before I realized where I went wrong, so I’ve put together this guide to save you the same headache.
Prerequisites to Unlock the Smelter Crafting Recipe
Before you can even think about gathering materials for your smelter, you have to complete one critical quest step that most new players skip over. You won’t find the smelter recipe in your basic personal crafting menu, no matter how many materials you collect. Rescue the Blacksmith first before you try to craft a smelter, or you’ll waste hours running in circles.
The Blacksmith is located in the Forgotten Quarry, roughly 300 meters west of your starting spire. The area is guarded by a small group of low-level shrouded enemies, so you can clear it with your starting stone axe and a few healing berries if you’re careful. Once you free him, carry him back to your base and place him in a vacant NPC spot near your altar. As soon as he’s settled, the smelter recipe will unlock automatically in his crafting menu.
Next, you’ll need to gather four core materials to build the smelter. All of these are available in the starting biome, so you don’t have to venture into dangerous high-level shroud areas to collect them:
- 20x Stone: Mined from any surface rock formation near the starting spire, no upgraded tools required
- 10x Dirt: Dug up with a basic pickaxe or shovel from grassy patches or exposed dirt banks
- 4x Charcoal: Crafted by placing 1 piece of wood in any campfire, 1 wood yields 1 charcoal
- 3x Copper Ore: Mined from bright orange copper veins found in hills and cave entrances across the starting biome
You don’t need a high-level pickaxe to collect any of the base smelter materials, so you can gather everything within the first two hours of a new playthrough if you prioritize this step. I usually collect all the materials while I’m exploring the area around the Forgotten Quarry to rescue the Blacksmith, so I can build the smelter immediately once he’s back at my base.
Step-by-Step Instructions for How to Make Smelter Enshrouded
Once you have the Blacksmith unlocked and all your materials gathered, building and placing your smelter only takes a couple of minutes. First, walk up to the Blacksmith and interact with him to open his crafting menu. Navigate to the Workstations tab, scroll until you see the Smelter option, and select it. If you have all the required materials, the craft button will be lit up, and you can make the smelter instantly with no wait time.
Next, pull out your build hammer and open your inventory to find the smelter you just crafted. Select it, and you’ll see a placement outline appear on your screen. Green means the spot is valid, red means you need to adjust the placement. Always place your smelter under a covered, enclosed area to avoid weather-related work stoppages. I made the mistake of placing my first smelter out in the open, and it stopped working every time it rained, which wasted almost an hour of smelting time before I figured out the issue.
Once you find a valid spot, click to place the smelter. Walk up to it and interact with it to light the fire, and it’s ready to use. If you ever decide you want to move it to a different part of your base, just pull out your build hammer, select the smelter, and pick it up for free. You won’t lose any materials, and any ore that was mid-smelt will stay in the smelter’s inventory when you move it.
Common Mistakes to Avoid With Your New Smelter
I’ve built at least six smelters across different playthroughs, so I’ve made every possible mistake you can make with this workstation. The most common one I see new players make is forgetting to stock enough charcoal to keep their smelter running. Every bar you smelt uses one piece of charcoal, so if you have 20 copper ore to process, you need 20 pieces of charcoal, not just the 4 you used to build the smelter.
Keep a stock of at least 50 charcoal near your smelter at all times to avoid pausing smelting runs. I usually keep a small pile of wood next to my campfire right by the smelter, so I can make more charcoal in 10 seconds if I run out. It saves me from having to run back into the woods to cut more wood halfway through a big smelting session.
Another common mistake is placing the smelter far away from your storage chests. You’ll be hauling a lot of ore and bars back and forth, so long walks add up fast. Place 1-2 small storage chests directly adjacent to your smelter to cut down on time spent hauling materials. I use one chest for raw ore and charcoal, and another for finished bars, so I don’t have to sort through my main inventory every time I want to smelt something.
Don’t waste time upgrading your smelter until you’re regularly processing iron ore. The basic smelter works perfectly fine for copper and tin, and the upgrade materials are better spent on better tools or base defenses early on. I waited until I had a steady supply of iron to upgrade my smelter, and that felt like the right pace for my playthrough.
Top Uses for Your Smelter to Speed Up Progression
Your smelter isn’t just for making copper bars for a better pickaxe, though that’s a great first use. Your smelter is the single most important workstation for progressing past the early game in Enshrouded, and almost every mid-game and late-game recipe relies on materials you can only make with a smelter.
The first thing you should make with your new smelter is 3 copper bars to craft a copper pickaxe. It mines stone 3x faster than your starting stone pickaxe, and it lets you mine iron ore, which unlocks the next tier of gear. Next, smelt enough copper bars to make a full set of copper armor, which reduces damage from basic shrouded enemies by 30% so you can explore deeper shroud areas without dying every five minutes.
Once you unlock iron ore, you can use your smelter to make iron bars for stone building parts, which are 4x more durable than wood and don’t catch on fire if a flame enemy attacks your base. You can also smelt tin and copper together to make bronze, which is used for high-tier tools and weapons that can take down the game’s first major boss, the Ember Princess.
Later in the game, you can upgrade your smelter to process higher-tier metals like steel and obsidian, which are used for endgame gear and massive castle builds. Even 20 hours into a playthrough, my smelter is still the first workstation I use when I log in, since I’m always processing ore for new building projects or gear upgrades.
There’s no way around it: if you want to get past the first few hours of rough tools and flimsy thatch bases, you need to know how to make smelter Enshrouded as early as possible. I’ve made every mistake possible when building my first few smelters across different playthroughs, so following the steps above will save you hours of wandering around looking for missing materials or troubleshooting why your smelter won’t light. Once you have it up and running, you’ll be shocked at how much faster you can expand your base and take on more dangerous areas of the map. Next thing you know, you’ll be crafting steel gear and building massive castles without breaking a sweat.