Bricked Blast Furnace

The Bricked Blast Furnace (BBF) is a Steam tier multiblock for smelting iron into steel. The structure consists of a controller block and several layers of firebrick around a hollow interior. Crafting the necessary firebricks requires gathering gypsum dust from basaltic mineral sand veins and calcite dust from lapis veins, among other things. BBFs can wallshare each of their sides to save on firebricks which makes them much cheaper to build after the first one. One steel ingot takes 360s to smelt with coal or charcoal, but only 240s with coke. Expect to have 4-8 BBFs running continuously to keep up with the high demand for steel in the early game. The BBF is superseded by the Electric Blast Furnace (EBF), but it may be useful to keep some around for cheap and easy steel production while the EBF smelts other materials.

The BBF consists of a controller block and several layers of firebrick around a hollow interior. There are no buses/hatches since all items are inserted and extracted manually from the controller. The only way to tell if the BBF is formed is by starting a recipe; the controller lights up and smoke is released out of the top of the structure. Use the extended tooltip and NEI structure preview to learn more about its structure requirements in-game, and the Multiblock Structure Hologram Projector to visualize/build the structure in the world.

Crafting a BBF and all the necessary firebricks requires a total of 144 clay dust, 72 gypsum dust, 72 calcite dust, 36 stone dust, 36 quartz sand, and 28 iron plates. Find gypsum ore in basaltic mineral sand veins and calcite ore in lapis veins. Macerate terracotta for clay dust, cobblestone for stone dust, and sand for quartz sand--or use a mortar. Terracotta is commonly found on the side of mountains and throughout mesa biomes.

Structure

• Controller: Front center, 2nd layer
• 32 Firebricks
• Mandatory Air: Interior and top center of the structure

Wallsharing

BBFs may wallshare each of their sides to save on firebricks. This is extremely valuable in the early game because firebricks are very expensive and time-consuming to craft. See the image to the right for an example of wallsharing four BBFs simultaneously. Every GregTech multiblock can do this to some extent.

The following table breaks down the cost of additional BBFs assuming that they are wallshared in a 2xN column, as seen in the image above. The first number in each cell is the running total and the number in parentheses is the cost of ONE additional BBF. Note that firebricks refer to the actual blocks--NOT the ingots--and that the totals include the cost of the controller(s).

The BBF has many different recipes for smelting iron into steel. The only significant difference between them is their throughput. Each steel ingot takes 360s to smelt with coal or charcoal, but only 240s with coke. Compressed fuels also have slightly higher fuel efficiency because they can process 10 ingots at a time instead of 9 for the same amount of resources. A full summary of the relevant recipes are provided below. Note that iron ingots can be replaced with iron dust if necessary.

The BBF can also boost the output of certain metal oxide dusts (pyrite, magnetite, cassiterite, etc). More specifically, the BBF yields 3 ingots for every 2 dusts--a 50% boost compared to vanilla furnaces or the Steam Oven. The problem is that the recipes are 120s with coal or charcoal and 80s with coke. That is a very long time to be waiting for a few basic resources and detracts from steel production. Therefore, it is highly discouraged to run these type of recipes in a BBF.

The image to the right highlights each part of the BBF's graphical user interface (GUI). The exact locations of the iron and fuel does not matter, despite the shadow icons over each slot. Every GregTech multiblock has a similar layout with inputs on the left and outputs on the right.

1. Input slot #1 - For Iron OR Fuel
2. Input slot #2 - For Iron OR Fuel
3. Input slot #3 - For Iron OR Fuel
4. Progress bar - Displays the current progress. Click to see all available recipes.
5. Output slot #1 - For Steel OR ashes
6. Output slot #2 - For Steel OR ashes
7. Output slot #3 - For Steel OR ashes

The BBF releases 200 gibbl/s of pollution into the air while active. If left unchecked, pollution can apply significant debuffs to the player and slowly erodes the surrounding chunks. The debuffs can be avoided by wearing a full hazmat suit, but nothing can stop the effects on the world until LV. There are really three options for mitigating the effects of pollution in the steam age:

• Place BBFs far away from your base to concentrate the pollution elsewhere. Long Distance Pipelines can help transport resources.
• Place BBFs in the nether to concentrate the pollution in an entirely other dimension. It does not travel through the nether portal.
• Disable pollution in .minecraft\config\GregTech\Pollution.cfg.

Later on, use pollution scrubbers and/or Electric Air Filters to actually remove the pollution from chunks. Higher tier armors (ie. Nanosuit) also provide full hazmat protection. Visit the page on pollution for more information.

• There is lava inside an active Bricked Blast Furnace but it is only visual and cannot be pumped out.