Minecraft potions and brewing guide

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If you are looking for more on Minecraft, check out our guides on how to tame a fox in Minecraft, and how to enable ray-tracing but for now, let's take a look at all things potion related in the game.

How to make Potions in Minecraft

Potions are certainly worth having if you are playing in Minecraft Survival mode as they will give you an added edge, or they will get you out of a spot of bother which you will likely find yourself in.

You can also make them in Creative mode, which is a good way to practice the art of it, but they will not come in much use there. But there is more than one potion that you can make in the game and some of them are quite involved - the invisibility potion could have been an article all to itself - but we have most of the bases covered for you here.

There are some things you will need to have in order to make a certain type of potion and we will get into how to get your hands on those things as we go on but for a quick summary, here is the list.

A Brewing Stand
Blaze Powder
Glass Bottles
A source to get some water from

And they tend to follow similar steps too that involve the following:

Making an awkward potion from a Nether wart and a water bottle.
Adding an effect ingredient to make the potion transform into what you want it to be.
You can also change the nature of the Potion by adding a modifier ingredient.

Minecraft Brewing Equipment

Here's a little more on some of the key equipment you will need to have for making and brewing potions in Minecraft.

Brewing stand

The brewing stand is one of the essential tools as it is what you will use to brew the potions.

Cauldron

This can be used as your water source which will also be needed on your potion making journey.

Blaze Powder

Add some Blaze Rod into the Crafting Table to make this as you will definitely be needing some Blaze Powder if you plan to make some of teh more powerful potions you can get your hands on.

Glass bottle

And you will need some glass bottles too which will turn into water bottles when water is added to them.

How to make a Minecraft Brewing Stand

You will definitely be in need of a Brewing Stand if you are planning on getting into the potion making business in Minecraft and here is how to do it.

Open up the crafting menu and select a 3×3 crafting grid.
Place one blaze rod and three cobblestones into it.
Add one blaze rod into the second box on the first row.
Now pop three cobblestones into the second row.
Now craft and the stand will be yours. Above is what your grid should look like before attempting to craft.

Minecraft Brewing Potions

Whenever you create a potion, you need to start with a base ingredient so no matter what one it is that you are looking to brew, you'll be starting the process off with one of the below - and we have listed what type of potion they can be used to make too.

Base Ingredients

Dragon's Breath creates a Lingering Water Bottle
Fermented Spider Eye creates a Potion of Weakness
Glowstone creates a Thick potion
Gunpowder creates a Splash Water Bottle
Nether Wart creates an Awkward potion
Redstone Dust creates a Mundane potion

Secondary Ingredients

Now it is time to influence the type of potion you are creating with the secondary ingredients. Again, we have broken down what each one can be used for.

Blaze Powder adds Strength
Fermented Spider Eye adds Poison
Ghast Tear adds Regeneration
Glistering Melon adds Healing
Golden Carrot adds Night Vision
Magma Cream adds Fire Resistance
Phantom Membranes adds Slow falling
Pufferfish adds Water breathing
Rabbit's Foot adds Swiftness
Sugar also adds Swiftness
Turtle Shell adds Water breathing

Elemental Ingredients

These ingredients can be used to cure certain ailments including blindness, nausea and poison! These are:

Bismuth which cures nausea
Calcium will treat blindness
Cobalt that cures weakness
Silver to combat the effects of poison

Potion Modifier Ingredients

Adding potion modifier ingredients can have different effects on your potions depending on which ones you go for.

Glowstone Dust increases the effect of the potion and can be identified by having "II" at the end of the name.
Redstone Dust extends how long the effect lasts and has a "+" at the end of the name.
Fermented Spider Eye can turn your potion into something different entirely and we will be looking at that one for the invisibility potion shortly.
Gunpowder turns a potion into a Splash Potion which when hurled at the ground will impact anyone in its radius.
Dragon's Breath being added to a Splash Potion transforms it into a Lingering Potion which means it lingers around for longer after it breaks.

Minecraft Potion Chart for 1.16.5

This potion chart from Minecraft is very detailed. Minecraft Wiki

Above you'll see an incredibly detailed potion chart from Minecraft. To make it bigger, you have two options: on a mobile device, pinch your screen to Zoom in; on a desktop PC or laptop, right-click and select the option to open this image in a new tab. Once you're able to read it, you should find some very useful details within.

Best Minecraft Potions

Wondering what the best potions in Minecraft are? Here are some options that we think you'll really like:

Potion of Healing - Restores health - requires Nether Wart and Glistering Melon
Potion of Fire Resistance - Makes you immune to fire and lava - Requires Nether Wart and Magma Cream
Potion of Strength - Increases the strength of melee attacks - Requires Nether Wart and Blaze Powder
Potion of Night Vision - Lets you see better in the dark - Requires Nether Wart and a Golden Carrot
Potion of Swiftness - Gives you a speed increase - Requires Nether Wart and sugar

How do I make a potion of invisibility?

And then there is the potion of invisibility, which deserves to be an absolute fan favourite in the Minecraft community. Survival Minecraft is the place to be for invisibility potions and they will help you survive longer against the enemies looking to take you down. While being a bit on the fiddly side to make, it is definitely worth doing to give yourself an edge.

First things first, You will need to collect these goods if you want to make an invisibility potion:

Blaze Powder
Water Bottles
Nether wart
Fermented Spider Eye

To make this potion, you actually need to make another one first - a Potion of Nightvision, which requires a Nether wart, a bottle of water and a golden carrot.

To find the Nether wart you will need to head to Nether Fortresses or Bastion Remnants as they are the only two places that can be found.

For the water bottle, open up your crafting grid and put glass blocks on the far left and the far right on the top row and then put one more in the centre. You will get three water bottles for doing this and all you need to do to fill them up is to find a water source.

The Bastion Remnants is also where you will want to go to grab that golden carrot - you also have a chance of locating one in the Ruined Portals. Alternatively, go back to the crating table and pop a carrot right in the middle. Then add eight golden nuggets around it and you will be able to craft the carrot.

Now head to a Brewing Stand and combine the lot and you will be able to make yourself a Potion of Nightvision. The way to set this out is as follows:

Activate the Brewing Stand by placing the Blaze Powder into the far left box (pop some Blaze Rod into the Crafting Table to make this if needed).
Now pop the Water Bottle into one of the boxes on the bottom row.
Now add the Nether Wart into the top box of the brewing stand.
Doing this will create the Awkward potion but you still have another step to go to get the potion you need.
Now place the Golden Carrot in the top box and you will be ready to create the Potion of Nightvision.

But we still do not have the invisibility potion yet (we did say this was a long process). Next up, you need the horridly named Fermented Spider Eye.

You can get a spider eye from a spider, oddly enough, and to ferment it you also need a mushroom and some sugar.

Pop the mushroom into the top box on the crafting table and in the second you will add the sugar.
Now put the spider eye in the centre box which should be right underneath the sugar.

Now you have the eye and it is nice and fermented, we can finally get the invisibility potion by combining the Fermented Spider Eye with the Potion of Nightvision in the Brewing Stand.

Place the Potion of Nightvision into one of the three bottom boxes.
Now add the Fermented Spider Eye in the top box.

This will get you your Invisibility potion and it will last for three minutes. But we are still not done as you can make an even better one that will last for eight minutes. To get this one, do the following:

Add the Potion of Invisibility to the bottom row of the Brewing Stand and then add some Redstone dust at the top.
Combine the two and you have an even better version of the Invisibility potion.

If you need some Redstone dust, you can get some by mining Redstone Ore and putting that into the crafting table!

Give it three minutes or five minutes, and you'll have yourself an invisibility potion.

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Joe JuliansEntertainment Journalist

Minecraft potions and brewing guide

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