Almost every end-game scenario in Minecraft will require you to brew and use potions both on yourself and on your enemies. Potions range from health and damage buffs all the way to invisibility and poison. Ready to start brewing? Here's what you need to know about potions!
- Visit the Nether to gather resources
- Craft the necessary items
- Create a Nether wart farm
- How to brew potions
- Potion recipes
Visit the Nether to gather resources
The first thing you'll want to do is visit the Nether. Plan accordingly — armor and weapons, especially with enchantments, will help you gather resources and fend off enemies. Also, consider bringing a bunch of snowballs. They hurt Blazes and are relatively fast to fire off. To make a snowball, just dig snow with a shovel!
Your best bet is to locate a fortress within the Nether. Here you'll find Nether wart growing in soul sand at the bottom of the entrance staircase. Mine both items with a shovel.
Fortresses also contain a Blaze spawner. If you manage to locate the spawner, kill a Blaze and grab the Blaze rod it drops. This is used to craft the brewing stand.
Craft the necessary items
There are a number of items you must craft before you begin brewing.
Brewing stand
This is your go-to item when brewing potions. Craft one from three cobblestone blocks and a Blaze rod.
Cauldron
Cauldrons aren't entirely necessary if you have a water source nearby, but if you have iron to spare, they'll help out quite a bit. An iron bucket full of water will fill a cauldron. You can then right-click the cauldron with an empty glass bottle to fill the bottle. This will drain the cauldron by 1/3 — you can repeat the process twice more with empty bottles to completely drain the cauldron.
If you have bottles of potions already crafted in your inventory, you can right-click an empty cauldron with the bottle full of potion to transfer its contents. This can be repeated three times to fill the cauldron, as long as the potions being emptied into the cauldron are the same. Reverse the process to fill empty bottles with whatever potion is within the cauldron.
When a cauldron has a potion in it, you can right-click with an arrow in-hand to turn the arrow into a tipped arrow. This works great with poison potions.
Bottles
Three blocks of glass will turn into three empty bottles.
Create a Nether wart farm
You collected Nether wart and soul sand on your trip to the Nether; it's time to create a farm, as you'll need a constant supply of Nether wart for brewing. Place soul sand blocks on the ground wherever you please, then plant the Nether wart in it. You can harvest it when fully grown, just like other crops.
How to brew potions
Right-click a water source with all three empty bottles to fill them with water.
Right-click the brewing stand and place the three water-filled bottles into the stand.
Place Nether wart into the top slot of the brewing stand. The potions will begin brewing — it takes about 20 seconds to brew a potion.
You've now brewed three Awkward potions. These are combined with other ingredients within the brewing table to create powerful potions.
You've probably killed quite a few spiders by this point in your game; you can brew a spider eye with an Awkward potion to create a potion of Poison. Just place the spider eye in the top slot of the brewing stand and, as long as you have at least one Awkward potion in the bottom slots, you'll end up with a potion of Poison.
If you'd like to extend the time the effects of the potion hold, add redstone dust to the potions.
If you'd like to add power to the potions, add glowstone dust instead. This will upgrade your potions to level two.
Add gunpowder to the mix to change the potions into splash potions — these can be tossed at enemies.
Before you go throwing these splash potions about, don't forget to add fermented spider eye in order to make them harmful to enemy mobs.
After all these modifications, we finally have a splash potion of Harming.
Potion recipes
There are plenty more recipes available for you to brew up.
| New potion | Base potion | Addition | Effect |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fire Resistance | Awkward potion | Magma cream | Resistant to fire and lava |
| Harming | Potion of Healing or Poison | Fermented spider eye | Does instant damage |
| Healing | Awkward potion | Glistering melon | Restore two hearts of health |
| Invisibility | Potion of Night Vision | Fermented spider eye | Makes you invisible |
| Leaping | Awkward potion | Rabbit's foot | Jump higher |
| Night Vision | Awkward potion | Golden carrot | See in the dark |
| Poison | Awkward potion | Spider eye | Poison yourself |
| Regeneration | Awkward potion | Ghast tear | Restore one heart of health every 2.4 seconds |
| Slowness | Potion of Swiftness or Leaping | Fermented spider eye | Movement is slowed |
| Strength | Awkward potion | Blaze powder | Extra melee damage |
| Swiftness | Awkward potion | Sugar | Add about 20% to movement speed |
| Water Breathing | Awkward Potion | Pufferfish | Breathe underwater |
| Weakness | Water bottle | Fermented spider eye | Reduce melee damage |
Do you brew?
Have you reached the point of brewing potions in one of your Minecraft worlds? What's your favorite potion? Let us know in the comments section below!
