Greetings.
I am a man in a suit who has fallen into the world of Minecraft.
I have used lava from the fuel workshop I built in Episode 106 to make smooth stone before.
This time I want to fire some red bricks and use them to dress up a little kiln.
Going Underground for Pointed Dripstone
I head down the stairs beside the lantern in the rain.
The first thing I need is pointed dripstone for the shelf where I want to turn mud into clay.
I dig a passage off the stairs and light the cave beyond it with torches.
There are pointed shapes rising from the cave floor.
I break five stalagmites for the shelf.
That leaves me with ten pieces of pointed dripstone.
I take them back to town for the shelf.
Turning Mud Into Clay on the Kiln Shelf
I pick a spot north of the fuel workshop.
I level the grass for a small kiln and set aside the dirt I dig up.
I build a stone brick support and hang nine pieces of pointed dripstone from its underside.
I put the dirt on top and turn it into mud with water bottles.
The official Java update notes explain that mud above a block with pointed dripstone hanging beneath it eventually turns into clay.
Looking up at the shelf, I can see a row of dark mud and a lighter patch at the left end.
While I wait, I add a roof and a lantern, checking back on the shelf from time to time.
I look up at the same shelf and most of the blocks are pale clay now.
One patch of dark mud is still there.
Where I knew when I had turned the dirt into mud, it took about two to thirteen minutes before I noticed the clay.
Firing Bricks With Lava for the Kiln
I dig up twenty blocks of clay from the shelf and pick up eighty clay balls.
Using lava from the fuel workshop, I fire them in the furnace and get eighty bricks.
The furnace is burning in this picture, and an empty bucket is left in its fuel slot.
I turn the fired bricks into twenty brick blocks.
Eight frame the kiln opening and twelve go on the two sides of the entrance.
There are four furnaces across the front, with the middle two lit here.
Here is the recipe screen when I open the crafting table later.
Four bricks in a square make one brick block, as shown in the official Minecraft article on bricks.
I step back and see the kiln standing alongside the white-walled fuel workshop.
The workshop next door supplies the fuel, and the bricks it helps me fire end up in the kiln walls.
I rather like the two buildings side by side.
I stop for a picture in front of the red brick entrance.
With a furnace glowing inside, the little kiln looks ready for another day’s work.
That is all for this time.
Greetings.