Verisium Ore get converted automatically

Well hug problem.
Yesterday I Found a Veritisium Ore, about 400 and mined it. When I showed up next day it had been converted to bars, even though I don't have anyone smelting it. Happended twice now and I can't upgrade my town without the Ore.

Help? Ideas?

I ran into a similar problem when I needed bismuth and opened smelting bars too early.

What I did was have zero gold in the town coffers so no one would work, then line up plenty of deposits to be mined (aim for double how much you need for your upgrades). Before putting gold back in the town fund, assign your best miners to mine those deposits and no one assigned to smelting. This should create enough of a backlog of ore without it being smelted too soon, just be sure to not leave it running over night with unlimited town funds.

You should be able to see exactly how long it will take to get the correct amount of ore, and if leaving it running overnight only leave enough gold in the town to operate for exactly that long.

An easier option could be to just remove all smelters from the relevant building since they will move on to other ores if their assigned ore is depleted.

This way you can continue to get crops, ore, shipping rewards etc. while still retaining the unsmelted ores for upgrades

Very helpfull thanks!