Potion guide: every brewing recipe, upgrade and duration in Minecraft
Every potion you can brew in Java Edition: the ingredients step by step, the upgrades, how long each version lasts, and a shopping list for a batch.
Brewing in Minecraft is a chain: a Water Bottle becomes an Awkward Potion, the Awkward Potion becomes a real potion, and then up to four more ingredients make it last longer, hit harder, turn into its opposite, or become something you throw. This guide shows that chain for every potion you can brew in Java Edition 26.3, from Swiftness to the newer Infestation, Oozing, Weaving and Wind Charging, along with how long every version lasts and what a whole batch will cost you.
How to use it
- Pick a potion in the grid, or type its name, an ingredient or an effect in the search box: “sugar” finds Swiftness and Slowness, “fire” finds Fire Resistance.
- Choose the version (normal, extended or stronger) and the kind (drinkable, splash, lingering or tipped arrows). The brewing steps follow your choice.
- Enter how many you want. The shopping list counts the Water Bottles, Nether Wart, ingredients, upgrade items and Blaze Powder, and how many brewing runs the batch takes.
- Check the table for how long each version lasts, and the Bedrock Edition box if you also play on consoles or phones.
The brewing stand
A brewing stand is crafted from 1 Blaze Rod over 3 Cobblestone (blackstone or cobbled deepslate work too). It has three bottle slots at the bottom, one ingredient slot at the top and a fuel slot on the left. The fuel is Blaze Powder: one powder lasts 20 brewing runs. A run takes 20 seconds, and the ingredient on top changes every bottle below it at once, so three bottles cost the same ingredient and fuel as one. That is why this guide counts batches of three. Fill Glass Bottles at any water source; three Glass make three bottles at a crafting table.
What each ingredient does
- Nether Wart turns a Water Bottle into an Awkward Potion, the starting point of almost every potion. It grows on soul sand in Nether fortresses; plant it on soul sand to farm it.
- The key ingredient, added to an Awkward Potion, decides the effect: Sugar for Swiftness, Rabbit's Foot for Leaping, Glistering Melon Slice for Healing, Spider Eye for Poison, Ghast Tear for Regeneration, Blaze Powder for Strength, Magma Cream for Fire Resistance, Golden Carrot for Night Vision, Pufferfish for Water Breathing, Phantom Membrane for Slow Falling and Turtle Shell for the Turtle Master.
- The 1.21 potions use Breeze Rod (Wind Charging), Cobweb (Weaving), Slime Block (Oozing) and Stone (Infestation). They have only one version: no Redstone Dust or Glowstone Dust.
- Redstone Dust makes a potion last longer. Glowstone Dust makes it stronger but shorter. A potion takes one or the other, never both.
- A Fermented Spider Eye corrupts a potion: Night Vision becomes Invisibility, Swiftness and Leaping become Slowness, and Healing and Poison become Harming. On a plain Water Bottle it makes Weakness.
- Gunpowder turns any potion into a splash potion you throw. Dragon's Breath turns a splash potion into a lingering one; you collect it in Glass Bottles from the Ender Dragon's purple breath attack.
- Eight Arrows around one lingering potion on a crafting table make eight tipped arrows with the same effect.
Tips
- Brew Fire Resistance before a long trip to the Nether: with Redstone Dust it lasts 8 minutes, and lava can't hurt you.
- For fights, take Strength, Healing and Regeneration. Splash Healing works on you and your friends in one throw.
- Night Vision and Water Breathing together make ocean monuments far easier, and Slow Falling saves you from a bad landing with an elytra.
- Always brew three at a time. Two or three bottles cost the same as one, so a single bottle wastes two thirds of the ingredient and the fuel.
- A Splash Potion of Weakness followed by a Golden Apple cures a zombie villager, and cured villagers give much cheaper trades.
- A Turtle Shell is crafted from 5 Turtle Scutes, which baby turtles drop as they grow up.
Questions
How do I make a splash potion?
Put the finished potion in the brewing stand and add Gunpowder. Throw it with the use button. A direct hit gives the full time shown for drinkable potions; the farther away it lands, the shorter the effect. You can add Redstone Dust or Glowstone Dust before or after the Gunpowder.
Why can't I make Strength II longer?
Each potion carries one modifier: Glowstone Dust for the stronger version, or Redstone Dust for the longer one. Once it has one, the brewing stand won't take the other. So you choose between Strength II for 1:30 and Strength for 8:00. The same goes for every potion with both versions.
How do lingering potions and tipped arrows work?
Add Dragon's Breath to a splash potion. When it breaks, it leaves a cloud that gives the effect for a quarter of the potion's time each time it touches someone, and the cloud shrinks as it does. Tipped arrows take eight Arrows and one lingering potion, and give an eighth of the time: 0:22 for normal Swiftness.
Why does my brewing stand do nothing?
Check three things: there is Blaze Powder in the fuel slot, the bottles hold something the ingredient works on (most ingredients need an Awkward Potion, not a Water Bottle), and the step exists at all. Glowstone Dust on an extended potion, Redstone Dust on the 1.21 potions and a Fermented Spider Eye on Strength have no recipe in Java Edition, so the stand won't start.
Are there potions you cannot brew?
Yes. The Potion of Luck exists only in Java Edition, and only in the creative inventory or with commands. Bedrock Edition's Potion of Decay cannot be brewed either. A Potion of Freezing is being tested in the 26.4 snapshots, so it is not in 26.3 yet.
Java Edition and Bedrock Edition
Everything runs in this page, and your last potion and batch are remembered in this browser. For your next project, see the enchantment order calculator, the stack calculator, the Nether portal calculator and all tools.