You’re standing there, staring at a massive pile of gray clay you just hauled out of a swamp. It’s bulky. It’s ugly. You want that classic, cozy suburban look or maybe a towering fortress that doesn't look like it's made of mud. To get there, you need to know how to make a brick in minecraft. Not the block. Not yet. Just the individual brick item. It's the foundation of everything cool in the building world, and honestly, it’s one of the few items that hasn't changed its core recipe since Notch was still calling the shots.
People overcomplicate it. They look for complex crafting tables or think they need some high-tier enchantment. Nope. It’s just dirt and fire. Well, specific dirt.
The Hunt for Clay: Where It Actually Hides
Before you can even think about a furnace, you need the raw material. Clay isn't just "dirt." If you go digging in a plains biome, you’re just going to get inventory-clogging dirt blocks. You need to look for those distinctive light-gray patches underwater. Usually, you’ll find them in shallow ponds, rivers, or the sprawling murky waters of a swamp. Swamps are actually the gold mine here. Because the water is shallow and the floor is flat, you can see those gray patches easily.
Grab a shovel. Any shovel works, but if you're doing this at scale, Efficiency II on a stone shovel is better than wasting your diamond durability on mud. When you break a clay block, it drops four clay balls. This is a crucial distinction. You aren't smelting the block itself; you are smelting the individual balls. If you silk-touch the block, you've actually made more work for yourself because you’ll just have to place it and break it again without the silk touch.
A Pro Tip for the Mesa (Badlands)
If you’re lucky enough to live near a Badlands biome, forget the riverbeds. You can find hardened terracotta everywhere. While you can't easily turn terracotta back into individual bricks, it provides a shortcut to colored building materials. But for that classic red-brick aesthetic? You’re sticking to the clay-ball-in-a-furnace method.
Smelting Your Way to Success
Once you have your clay balls, you need a furnace. This is the part of how to make a brick in minecraft that trips up the absolute beginners. You place the clay ball in the top slot of the furnace and any fuel—coal, charcoal, wood, or even a bucket of lava—in the bottom.
One clay ball equals one brick.
💡 You might also like: All Barn Locations Forza Horizon 5: What Most People Get Wrong
It’s a 1:1 ratio. This is why building a brick house is such a flex in survival mode. To make one single Brick Block, you need four individual bricks. That means for every block you place in your house, you’ve spent the time finding, digging, and smelting four separate items. It’s labor-intensive. It’s slow. But man, does it look better than cobblestone.
Fuel Efficiency Matters
Don't waste coal if you don't have to. If you’re just starting, use dried kelp blocks if you have an ocean nearby. They burn for a long time and they're essentially a renewable resource. If you're in the endgame, a lava bucket is the king of the furnace, but it’s overkill if you only have half a stack of clay.
Turning Bricks into Blocks
Now that you’ve got your pile of individual bricks, you need to head to the crafting table. The recipe is a simple 2x2 square. Fill four slots with bricks, and you get one Brick Block.
But wait.
If you are playing in a version from the last few years (anything post-1.14), you’re doing it wrong if you’re only using a crafting table. You need a Stonecutter.
The Stonecutter Revolution
Honestly, the Stonecutter is the most underrated block in the game for builders. Instead of doing the math in your head and losing resources to "rounded" crafting recipes, the Stonecutter lets you turn one Brick Block into one Brick Slab, or one Brick Wall, or one set of Stairs directly. It saves a massive amount of clicking. More importantly, it allows for more granular design. If you're trying to figure out how to make a brick in minecraft look like a real chimney, you're going to want those walls and slabs to create depth. Flat walls are for amateurs.
📖 Related: When Was Monopoly Invented: The Truth About Lizzie Magie and the Parker Brothers
The Economics of Villager Trading
Stop digging. Seriously.
If you want to build a mega-base out of bricks, digging up every river in a 2,000-block radius is a fool's errand. You'll ruin the landscape and your shovel's durability. The real experts use Stone Mason villagers.
A Mason (the one with the little hard hat) will often buy clay balls from you for emeralds at lower levels. But once you level them up? They will sell you 10 Brick Blocks for a single emerald. If you have a basic raid farm or even just a decent pumpkin/melon trade going with a Farmer, you can essentially get infinite bricks without ever touching a furnace again. This is the "meta" for high-level building.
- Find a village.
- Place a Stonecutter to turn a jobless villager into a Mason.
- Trade until they hit the "Journeyman" level.
- Buy your bricks.
It’s faster. It’s cleaner. It saves your coal for more important things, like smelting ancient debris.
Common Mistakes and Misconceptions
One thing people always ask is if they can "un-craft" a brick block back into four bricks. The answer is a hard no. Once those bricks are baked into a block, they stay that way. If you accidentally craft three stacks of blocks when you actually needed slabs, you're stuck with them (unless you use the Stonecutter I mentioned earlier to mitigate the damage).
Also, don't confuse Bricks with Nether Bricks.
Nether Bricks require you to go to the literal underworld, mine netherrack, and smelt that. It results in a dark, moody purple-ish brick. While the process is similar—smelt a raw material to get an item, then craft four items into a block—they are completely different aesthetics.
👉 See also: Blox Fruit Current Stock: What Most People Get Wrong
Why Bother with Bricks?
In terms of blast resistance, bricks are... okay. They aren't obsidian. A creeper will still blow a hole in your living room. But they have a much higher "hardness" rating than wood or sandstone. They won't catch fire, which is the real selling point. If you’re building near a fireplace or a lava pit, bricks are your best friend.
Actionable Steps for Your Next Build
If you’re ready to start your masonry career, here is the most efficient path forward.
First, go find a swamp or a lush cave. Lush caves are actually incredible for clay now; the floors are often covered in it. Collect at least five stacks of clay balls.
Second, don't just use one furnace. Set up a "super smelter" or even just a row of eight furnaces. Split your clay balls between them. This cuts your real-world waiting time from ten minutes down to about one.
Third, take those bricks and immediately craft a Stonecutter. Don't use the crafting table for anything other than making the initial Brick Blocks. Use the Stonecutter for the stairs, walls, and slabs.
Finally, start mixing your textures. A house made of 100% bricks looks like a red blob. Mix in some Granite or Polished Granite. The colors are similar enough that they blend, but the texture difference makes the build look "expensive." If you really want to go nuts, mix in some terracotta or even some mud bricks from the newer updates.
Bricks aren't just a block; they're a statement. They say you spent the time to gather the clay and the fuel to make something permanent. Now get out there and start smelting.
Next Steps for Builders:
Check your nearest river for those gray patches and start digging. If you have an abundance of emeralds, find a Stonecutter and start leveling up a Mason villager to bypass the smelting process entirely. Experiment with mixing Brick Blocks with Granite and Polished Granite to add realistic texture to your walls.