Brewing is one of the most useful mechanics in Minecraft, especially in the more advanced stages of the game. It allows you to strengthen your character, prepare for tough battles, and explore dangerous areas. In this guide, you’ll learn how to start your journey into alchemy – including how to craft a Brewing Stand, how it works, and what effects you can achieve using different ingredients.
How to make Brewing Stand in Minecraft
The Brewing Stand is a special block in Minecraft used for brewing potions. It allows you to combine ingredients with water bottles to create effects like healing, strength, invisibility, or fire resistance. To function, the Brewing Stand must be fueled with Blaze Powder. Once activated, you can place up to three Water Bottles inside and begin the brewing process.
To craft a Brewing Stand, place the following items in a crafting table:
- 1x Blaze Rod
- 3x Cobblestone
The Blaze Rod is dropped by mobs that spawn in Nether Fortresses, and each of them has a chance to drop one upon defeat. Obtaining a Blaze Rod is a bit more complicated, as it requires building a Nether Portal and traveling to a fortress. In contrast, Cobblestone is much easier to get — you simply need to mine regular stone using any pickaxe.
How to use Brewing Stand
Using a Brewing Stand is the foundation of alchemy in Minecraft, and although it might seem complicated at first, the process is actually simple once you understand how it works. Once you’ve crafted your Brewing Stand, right-click it to open the interface. Place Blaze Powder in the top-left slot – this is the fuel required to make it function. Then, place up to three Water Bottles in the bottom slots to begin the brewing process.
At this point, you can start creating the base for most potions by adding Nether Wart in the top slot. Once you do that, you’ll get an Awkward Potion!
Once you have your Awkward Potions ready, you can add the main ingredient to the top slot. In the example below, we’ll create a Health Potion by adding a Glistering Melon Slice.
Once you’ve brewed your potion, you can either collect it or enhance it by adding modifiers. In the example below, we’ve added Glowstone Dust to create a Potion of Healing II.
After creating a basic potion, you can modify it using special ingredients that can change the duration, strength, or application method.
In Minecraft, there are four main modifiers:
- Redstone Dust – extends the duration of effect, but only works on potions that have time-based effects (e.g. Night Vision).
- Glowstone Dust – increases the strength effect but shortens its duration. For example, a Potion of Strength will deal more damage, but for a shorter time.
- Gunpowder – turns a potion into a Splash Potion, allowing it to be thrown instead of drunk.
- Dragon’s Breath – upgrades a Splash Potion into a Lingering Potion, which creates a cloud that applies the effect to anyone who walks through it.
Minecraft Potions Recipes
Potions are divided into three types:
- Positive – grant beneficial effects such as healing, increased strength and speed, or invisibility. Perfect for exploration, combat, and survival.
- Negative – weaken the opponent through poison, damage, or slowness. Ideal for fighting mobs.
- Special – trigger unique effects, usually activated upon death or when taking damage.
Positive
| Potion of | Effect | Ingredient you need to add to Awkward Potion |
| Healing | Instantly restores health | Glistering Melon Slice |
| Regeneration | Gradually restores health over time | Ghast Tear |
| Strength | Increases melee damage | Blaze Powder |
| Swiftness | Increases movement speed | Sugar |
| Leaping | Increases jump height | Rabbit’s Foot |
| Night Vision | Improves visibility in darkness | Golden Carrot |
| Water Breathing | Allows breathing underwater | Pufferfish |
| Fire Resistance | Grants immunity to fire and lava damage | Magma Cream |
| Slow Falling | Slows fall speed and prevents fall damage | Phantom Membrane |
| Invisibility | Makes the player invisible to most mobs and players | Fermented Spider Eye (added to Night Vision) |
Negative
| Potion of | Effect | Recipe |
| Poison | Deals damage over time, but never kills | Add Spider Eye to Awkward Potion |
| Harming | Instantly deals damage | Add Fermented Spider Eye to Potion of Healing or Potion of Poison |
| Slowness | Reduces movement speed | Add Fermented Spider Eye to Potion of Swiftness or Potion of Leaping |
| Weakness | Reduces melee attack damage | Add Fermented Spider Eye to Water Bottle |
Special
| Potion of | Effect | Ingredient you need to add to Awkward Potion |
| Turtle Master | Grants resistance (damage reduction) and slowness | Turtle Shell |
| Wind Charging | On death, triggers a wind burst that knocks back nearby mobs and players | Breeze Rod |
| Weaving | On death, cobwebs appear; also lets player move faster through cobwebs | Cobweb |
| Infestation | When taking damage, there’s a chance to spawn silverfish | Stone Block |
| Oozing | On death, slimes appear at the death location | Slime Block |
How to get brewing ingredients
Blaze Powder – Obtained by crafting Blaze Rod, which drops from Blaze mobs. They spawn only in Nether Fortresses.
Water Bottle – Create a bottle using three glass blocks, then fill it with water by right-clicking on a water source.
Nether Wart – A plant that grows only in the Nether, usually found near staircases in Nether Fortresses. Can only be planted on Soul Sand.
Glistering Melon Slice – Crafted using 1x Melon Slice + 8x Gold Nuggets. Melons can be found in jungles and villages.
Ghast Tear – A rare drop from Ghasts, which spawn in the Nether.
Sugar – Crafted by processing Sugar Cane, which grows near water sources.
Rabbit’s Foot – Very rare drop from rabbits, which spawn in deserts, taigas, and plains biomes.
Golden Carrot – Crafted using 1x Carrot and 8x Gold Nuggets.
Pufferfish – Can be caught in any body of water, preferably in the ocean. A regular fishing rod is enough.
Magma Cream – Crafted from Blaze Powder + Slimeball, or dropped by Magma Cubes in the Nether.
Phantom Membrane – Dropped after defeating a Phantom, a monster that attacks the player if they haven’t slept for at least 3 days. They appear at night, most often in open spaces.
Fermented Spider Eye – Crafted using Spider Eye, Sugar, and Brown Mushroom.
Spider Eye – Dropped after killing spiders.
Turtle Shell – Crafted using 5x Scute.
Breeze Rod – Dropped after defeating a Breeze, which appears in Trial Chambers.
Stone Block – Must be mined using a pickaxe with Silk Touch.
Slime Block – Crafted with 9x Slimeballs, which drop from Slimes. Slimes appear at night in swamps.
