Quick answer: Bodies are burned in a Crematorium inside the Morgue. Research Body Places I, then build Crematorium I for 6 Bricks + 6 Bronze Details. Put a corpse in and it becomes 5 Ash + 1 Salt, and you still get its burial certificate to sell at the tavern. Before you have a crematorium, carry an unwanted corpse to the river and throw it in — that clears it, but pays nothing.
This page answers where to burn bodies, body decay, bad corpses and sell organs.
When to burn instead of bury
Bury corpses that add white skulls to your graveyard. Burn the rotten, low-skull ones that would drag graveyard quality down, and any body you need ash from — ash is an ingredient for ink, and in the 100% run the player burned a body "because I needed ash". Pull the organs you want first (blood, fat, skin, skull) at the autopsy table.
Steps
Research Body Places I
It unlocks Crematorium I.
Build it in the Morgue
6 Bricks + 6 Bronze Details (Bronze).
Burn the corpse
Place the body in and wait about two in-game hours. Output: 5 Ash + 1 Salt (10 + 2 with the Cremator perk), plus the burial certificate.
Upgrade later
Crematorium II (Body Places II; 12 Bricks + 8 Advanced Details) is faster and gives 7 Ash + 2 Salt.
Crematorium not burning?
Before update 1.005 the crematorium could get stuck with a corpse on it and become unusable. That was fixed on September 24, 2026 — update the game and try again.
What to do with the ash
Turn it into urns (3 Ash + 1 Clay Urn at the Formulation Bench), and 8 urns build a Columbarium that adds graveyard quality. Sell the certificates to Januarius at the tavern — each one also gives 1 Town Gratitude.
Related
- Zombies — a corpse with all six organs and red skulls is better raised than burned
Sources: a recorded 100% playthrough on YouTube, wikily.gg, AllThings.How, Destructoid.