Building a Smelter in Valheim: Recipe, Fuel, and Ore Guide

Stone weapons will only carry a viking so far. To climb the gear ladder in Valheim and stand a chance against the tougher bosses, you need real metal, and that means turning rough ore into refined bars. The Smelter is the structure that makes it happen, and it is one of the first big upgrades to your base after the basics are settled.

Unlocking the Smelter Recipe

The Smelter does not appear in your build menu by default. You have to find a Surtling Core before the recipe shows up. These are the small, glowing red and black cubes that hum like they have something to say.

There are two reliable ways to collect them:

• Search Burial Chambers scattered through the Black Forest. They almost always hide a Core or two among the bones.
• Kill Surtlings, the fiery creatures that spawn near swamps and burning stone circles. They drop Cores on death, but fighting them early on is risky.

If you are still in starter gear, stick with the Burial Chambers. Less screaming, more loot.

Materials Needed to Build It

Once the recipe is unlocked, you will need the following to actually place a Smelter:

• Surtling Core x5
• Stone x20

Stone is trivial. Pick up the loose rocks you trip over while exploring, or mine a few outcrops with any pickaxe. Surtling Cores are the real bottleneck, so plan a couple of Burial Chamber runs before you commit to building.

A word on placement: Smelters are a high value structure and raids will eventually come knocking. Tuck it inside a walled area, away from open shorelines and forest edges. A Smelter that gets smashed by a Troll on day three is a sad Smelter.

Fueling the Smelter with Coal

A Smelter does not run on hope. It needs Coal to operate. Each piece burns for 15 seconds, and every metal bar takes 30 seconds to refine, so expect to feed it constantly during big smelting sessions.

There are three ways to stock up on Coal:

1. Drops from Surtlings.
2. Loot found in chests across various biomes.
3. Crafting your own through a Charcoal Kiln, fed with Wood, Core Wood, or Fine Wood.

The Charcoal Kiln is usually the most sustainable option once you settle into a base.

What the Smelter Actually Produces

The Smelter accepts six different inputs and turns them into four base metals. Here is the full conversion list:

• Copper Ore becomes Copper
• Copper Scrap becomes Copper
• Tin Ore becomes Tin
• Iron Ore becomes Iron
• Scrap Iron becomes Iron
• Silver Ore becomes Silver

Each raw material has its own preferred biome:

• Copper sits in large deposits across the Black Forest.
• Tin appears in small chunks along shorelines inside the Black Forest.
• Iron hides in Sunken Crypts and Muddy Scrap Piles in the Swamps.
• Silver waits high up in the Mountains, often buried under snow.

Most ore can be broken with any pickaxe, but Silver Ore is stubborn. You will need at least an Iron Pickaxe to crack it open, which is why Silver tends to be a mid to late game pursuit rather than an early objective.