Steel is a Mekanism metal that you’re able to make in a 
Metallurgic Infuser, by infusing an 
Iron Ingot with Carbon twice and then smelting the Steel Dust that comes out. There isn’t a Steel ore to find, so this is the only way to get it, and it’ll cost you 2 
Coal or 1 
Charcoal for each ingot.
You’ll need it almost straight away, as the 
Steel Casing that sits in the middle of most machine recipes takes four Steel Ingots, and so do the first cables. Bronze is made in the same machine, from Copper and Tin, though it’s needed for far fewer things.
How to Get It
Steel
All of it happens in the Metallurgic Infuser, which needs to have some Coal or Charcoal in its infusion slot to fill the tank with Carbon. Each of the two infusing steps takes 10 mB of Carbon and 10 seconds, and you only need the one machine, as the Enriched Iron goes back into the same slot it came out of.
Infuse an Iron Ingot
Put an Iron Ingot in the Metallurgic Infuser with Carbon in the tank. It comes out as Enriched Iron.
Infuse the Enriched Iron
Put the Enriched Iron back into the same machine. With another 10 mB of Carbon it turns into Steel Dust.
Smelt the Steel Dust
Smelt the Steel Dust in a Furnace, a Blast Furnace or an Energized Smelter to get a Steel Ingot.
The 
Steel Dust will smelt in a normal 
Furnace, so you don’t need to wait for an 
Energized Smelter, which needs Steel to build anyway. 
Iron Dust works in place of the Iron Ingot for the first step as well, which is handy later on when your ores are coming out of the machines as dust.
From start to finish, each ingot spends 20 seconds in the Infuser and then another 10 seconds in a Furnace, so your first Steel Casing is going to take a couple of minutes. The Infuser only uses 20 FE/t while it’s working though, which means that a single 
Heat Generator is enough to keep it going.
Carbon
Carbon comes from Coal or Charcoal, and Charcoal is worth twice as much, at 20 mB against 10 mB. That means a single Charcoal is enough for one 
Steel Ingot, whereas you’d need two pieces of Coal, so it’s worth burning some logs for it.
Once you’ve built an 
Enrichment Chamber, you’ll want to put your Coal or Charcoal through it first to get 
Enriched Carbon. It doesn’t matter which one you use at that point, as either of them makes one Enriched Carbon, and that’s worth 80 mB, which is enough for four Steel Ingots.
Bronze
Bronze Ingots are made in the Infuser as well, from 3 
Copper Ingots and 10 mB of Tin, which gives you four of them at a time. The Tin has to go in the infusion slot as 
Tin Dust, which you’ll get by putting a 
Tin Ingot through a 
Crusher, or as an 
Enriched Tin, which covers eight lots.
3
4
Copper Dust is able to go in instead of the ingots, and you’ll get four 
Bronze Dust back, which smelts into ingots. You won’t need a lot of Bronze unless you have Mekanism Tools installed, as that’s the mod with the Bronze armor and tools in it.
How to Use It
Steel
Your first four ingots should go into a Steel Casing, as that’s the block in the middle of the Enrichment Chamber, the Crusher and most of the other machines. After that, two Steel Ingots and a 
Redstone Dust will make eight 
Basic Universal Cables, which is what lets you move your generator away from the Infuser.
| Made With Steel | Steel Ingots | What It Is For |
|---|---|---|
| Steel Casing | 4 | The middle of most machine recipes |
| Basic Universal Cable (8) | 2 | Moving power between blocks |
| Basic Mechanical Pipe, Pressurized Tube, Logistical Transporter (8) | 2 | Moving fluids, chemicals and items |
| Configurator | 1 | Setting sides and picking machines up |
| Dynamic Tank (4), Structural Glass (4) | 4 | Dynamic Tank multiblock |
| Thermal Evaporation Block (4) | 4 | Thermal Evaporation Plant |
| Induction Casing (4) | 4 | Induction Matrix |
| Boiler Casing (4), Turbine Casing (4) | 4 | Thermoelectric Boiler and Industrial Turbine |
The multiblocks are where most of it ends up, as most casing recipes take four ingots to make four blocks, and a big Industrial Turbine or Induction Matrix needs hundreds of casings. By then you’ll want an Infusing Factory running on Enriched Carbon, which is on the Factories and Tier Installers page.
Enriched Iron has one use of its own, as four of them are needed to craft the 
Reactor Glass for a Fission Reactor. Apart from that, it’s only ever a step on the way to Steel Dust.
Bronze
In Mekanism itself, Bronze Ingots are used to craft the 
Solar Neutron Activator, the 
Flamethrower, and the armored versions of the 
Jetpack and the 
Free Runners. Those last two also take a whole 
Block of Steel each, so they’re a lot more expensive than they look.
Dusts and Storage Blocks
A Crusher will turn Coal into 
Coal Dust and Charcoal into 
Charcoal Dust, and they’re worth the same Carbon as the item they came from, so there isn’t a reason to crush them for Steel. The 
Block of Charcoal is crafted from nine Charcoal, and it’ll give 180 mB in the infusion slot, which is enough for nine ingots.
Nine Steel or Bronze Ingots will craft into a storage block, and each ingot breaks down into nine nuggets, like the 
Steel Nugget or the 
Bronze Nugget. Both of the blocks are able to go in the base of a 
Beacon, with the 
Block of Bronze working the same way as the Steel one, and the ingots can be used to pick its effect.
How Much Carbon You Need
Every Steel Ingot costs 20 mB of Carbon, with half of it used in each step. The table below shows how many ingots you’ll get out of one of each item, and it’s the reason an Enrichment Chamber is worth building before you start on the bigger machines.
| Item | Carbon | Steel Ingots |
|---|---|---|
| Coal or Coal Dust | 10 mB | Half of one |
| Charcoal or Charcoal Dust | 20 mB | 1 |
| Enriched Carbon | 80 mB | 4 |
| Block of Coal | 90 mB | 4, with 10 mB left over |
| Block of Charcoal | 180 mB | 9 |
Enriching is better than crafting blocks, as nine Coal would only be worth 90 mB as a 
Block of Coal, but they’d be worth 720 mB as nine Enriched Carbon. The Infuser’s tank holds 1,000 mB, so it’ll take twelve Enriched Carbon before it’s full. Once you have Steel, the next machine to build with it is the Enrichment Chamber.
FAQ
Steel is made in the Metallurgic Infuser, by infusing an Iron Ingot with Carbon to get Enriched Iron, and then infusing that with Carbon again to get Steel Dust. The dust can be smelted in any Furnace, which gives you a Steel Ingot, and the Carbon comes from putting Coal or Charcoal in the infusion slot.
Each ingot uses 20 mB of Carbon, which works out as two pieces of Coal or a single Charcoal. If you put the Coal through an Enrichment Chamber first, it becomes Enriched Carbon, which is worth 80 mB, so you’ll get four Steel Ingots out of the same piece instead.
There isn’t a Steel ore, as it’s only made from Iron and Carbon in the Metallurgic Infuser. Mekanism’s recipes do accept Steel Ingots from other mods though, as long as they’re tagged as Steel, so you might be able to use those in a modpack, like in a Steel Casing.
Steel Dust is able to go in a normal Furnace or a 
Blast Furnace, so you don’t need the Energized Smelter for it. That’s lucky, as the Energized Smelter needs a Steel Casing to craft, which takes four Steel Ingots, so your first few ingots always have to come out of a Furnace.
