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[zzedar]

I've wondered that myself. My theory is that some of the carbon is lost during the melting process.

[Alastar]

Just another bit of background on why the whole mess is necessary:

Iron doesn't want to become steel. Heating and working it in the presence of carbon gets it to absorb some, but the resulting wrought iron is still quite soft and malleable.
If you turn up the heat further, something weird happens: the iron suddenly absorbs a whole lot of carbon and its melting point drops below the present temperature, you go from a somewhat malleable solid to a puddle almost instantly.
If you let it cool, you have cast iron: More carbon than steel, hard but brittle.

Many cultures came up with different tricks to get the carbon content right for steel; as has been mentioned the process in DF seems to mirror a Chinese technique.

[Garath]

I'am actually wondering if the problem of the OP has been fixed by now. Not that the science isn't interesting.

[Yaotzin]

If you let it cool, you have cast iron: More carbon than steel, hard but brittle.

I don't know if you meant to say it like that, but even cast iron only has up to ~4% carbon. Something with a *majority* carbon would be a lot like coal - brittle and flammable.

[Loud Whispers]

Tried deconstructing the smelter and rebuilding it? Are the (pig) iron bars being used/stockpiled?

Might be a known bug :/

In the mean time, use the job manager, that should work.

[Sus]

I think it was the burrows bug.

Had to abandon the fort to FPS death (and just as I was about to uncover the HFS for the first time, too!  ) anyway, so never really solved that. I guess the manager work-around would've fixed it.

[Alastar]

If you let it cool, you have cast iron: More carbon than steel, hard but brittle.

I don't know if you meant to say it like that, but even cast iron only has up to ~4% carbon. Something with a *majority* carbon would be a lot like coal - brittle and flammable.

What I meant was "containing more carbon than steel does", sorry for the ambiguity.

[zzedar]

This may be an urban legend, but I've heard that the definition of steel has not been constant throughout history. It used to be that the maximum amount of carbon it could have and still be considered steel was higher than it is now. That changed when the Bessemer Process came in; the BP was better at producing low-carbon steels, while the previously-dominant method (crucible steel) was better at high-carbon steels. Depending on the version you listen to, either the widespread use of the BP caused the definition to change, or Bessemer changed the definition as part of his marketing efforts.

[NinjaBoot]

I think it was the burrows bug.

Had to abandon the fort to FPS death (and just as I was about to uncover the HFS for the first time, too!  ) anyway, so never really solved that. I guess the manager work-around would've fixed it.

Either that or your materials were inaccessable/forbidden, "misplaced".