Minecraft Potion Brewing Guide: Every Potion, Ingredient and Recipe

The brewing stand

Brewing needs a trip to the Nether first: the stand is crafted from a blaze rod and three cobblestone, and it runs on blaze powder, so you need blazes from a fortress before any of this is possible. The Nether guide covers finding one. Once you have a handful of rods you are set for a long time — one powder fuels twenty operations, and one rod makes two powder.

The stand has three bottle slots at the bottom, one ingredient slot at the top and a fuel slot on the left. Every operation applies the top ingredient to all three bottles at once, taking twenty seconds, so always brew in threes. Fill glass bottles by right-clicking water (a cauldron or any water source), put three in, and add ingredients in order: base ingredient, then effect ingredient, then any modifiers.

Brewing stands generate in village churches (with a cleric villager) and in igloo basements, which is a shortcut if you have not found a fortress yet — but you still need blaze powder to fuel them.

Base potions

Every effect potion and its ingredient

All of these are brewed by adding the ingredient to an Awkward Potion. Durations are for the basic version; the extended (redstone) and level II (glowstone) versions are in the last two columns where they exist.

The four 1.21 potions (Wind Charged, Weaving, Oozing, Infested) are the “ominous” effects from the trial chambers and are mostly useful as splash potions thrown at enemies or as tipped arrows.

Modifiers: longer, stronger, splash, lingering

• Redstone dust — extends duration, usually from 3:00 to 8:00. Cannot be combined with glowstone; adding one to a potion that has the other converts it.
• Glowstone dust — raises the level (II), with a shorter duration. Strength II is +6 damage; Swiftness II is +40% speed; Healing II is eight hearts. Fire Resistance, Night Vision, Water Breathing, Slow Falling and Invisibility have no level II.
• Gunpowder — turns the potion into a splash potion. Thrown, affects a radius of a few blocks, works on mobs and other players. A direct hit gives full duration; the edge of the cloud gives less. Applied last, after redstone or glowstone.
• Dragon’s breath — turns a splash potion into a lingering potion that leaves a cloud on the ground for thirty seconds. Collected from the Ender Dragon’s breath attack with an empty bottle; needed for tipped arrows.

The order is: base → effect → redstone or glowstone → gunpowder → dragon’s breath. You can stop at any point.

Corrupted potions (fermented spider eye)

A fermented spider eye (spider eye + sugar + brown mushroom) added to a finished potion flips it to a related negative effect. These are the ones that matter:

Tipped arrows

Place a lingering potion in the centre of a crafting grid and surround it with eight arrows to get eight tipped arrows carrying that effect at one-eighth the duration. Because lingering potions need dragon’s breath, tipped arrows are an after-the-End item on Java. On Bedrock there is a second route: fill a cauldron with a potion (right-click it with the bottle) and dip arrows in it; each cauldron holds enough for a handful of arrows per level, and no dragon’s breath is needed. Arrows of Slowness, Harming and Weakness are the practical ones; Arrows of Healing are for supporting teammates or, thrown at a zombie horde, a mistake.

The potions actually worth brewing

You can make everything on this page, and most players make almost none of it. The realistic survival shortlist:

1. Fire Resistance (extended). Eight minutes of walking through lava. Turns the Nether from dangerous to safe, and makes bed-mining for ancient debris survivable. Magma cream drops from magma cubes or crafts from slime ball + blaze powder.
2. Slow Falling (extended). Four minutes of immunity to fall damage. The End fight, cliff building, elytra emergencies. Phantom membranes drop from phantoms, which spawn after three nights without sleeping.
3. Night Vision (extended). Eight minutes of daylight underground and underwater. Caving, ocean monuments, deep-dark exploration. Golden carrots are eight gold nuggets around a carrot, or bought from farmers.
4. Strength II. Plus six damage per hit for ninety seconds. Wither, dragon, raids. Blaze powder is the ingredient, so it is cheap once you farm blazes.
5. Regeneration (extended). Ninety seconds of healing. Ghast tears are the annoying part — ghasts die over lava and the drop is lost. Shoot them over land.
6. Water Breathing (extended) for ocean monuments, and Swiftness (extended) for anyone without a horse or elytra.
7. Splash Weakness — one batch of three is a lifetime supply for curing villagers.

Healing potions, by contrast, are usually a waste: a golden apple or simply eating is cheaper and the glistering melon costs eight gold nuggets each. Invisibility is fun and near-useless in survival. Turtle Master is a niche tank tool. Leaping is replaced by a horse.

Where every ingredient comes from

Frequently asked questions