Brewing



Brewing is the method by which potions and splash potions are made in Minecraft. Jeb has said that it will probably not come out in 1.9 (It is implemented in 1.9 prerelease 3 and 4), possibly pushing it to the full release of Minecraft.

The brewing process
To brew, a Brewing Stand must be crafted, which can be right clicked to prompt the brewing interface, where at the top an ingredient can be placed, and on the bottom there are 3 slots, for 3 different Water Bottles or pre-made Potions that can serve as potion bases, so 3 different potion bases can use the same one ingredient. After placing an ingredient and at least one potion base the brewing progress will start, indicated by the moving bubbles bar at the left. On the right a downwards-facing-arrow-shaped bar will start filling up, as long as it fills up, potion bases can be added or removed, as long as one base is still in a slot, but when all bases are removed, or the ingredient is removed, the process cancels and nothing happens. When the bar is full, the brewing process is complete, the ingredient is consumed, and the potion bases turn into new potions, depending on the inserted ingredient.

Alchemical Components
Alchemical Components are essential or useful supplies used to make potions.

Reagents
Reagents are used in conjunction with the above components to produce a whole array of potions and splash potions.

Base (Affecting) Reagents
Base Reagents are necessary to create Primary and Tertiary Potions and affect the duration and intensity of a tertiary potion's effects. In the case of Gunpowder, it affects the application of the potion when used (thrown vs. being consumed by the player).

Glistering Melon can be used as either a primary or secondary reagent and does not affect potion duration or intensity.

Effecting Reagents
Effecting Reagents are brewed with Primary Potions to create Secondary Potions. They determine the effect a potion will have when the player drinks the final product.

Glistering Melon can be used as either a primary or secondary reagent and does not affect potion duration or intensity.

Primary
All primary potions are created by brewing a single reagent with a Water Bottle and can be combined with Gunpowder to create their throwable Splash Potion counterparts. This Video covers the basics for brewing a few examples of different kinds of potions.

Secondary
Secondary potions are created by brewing a reagent with a primary potion and can be combined with Gunpowder to create their throwable Splash Potion counterparts.

Tertiary
Tertiary potions are created by brewing a reagent with a secondary potion or another tertiary potion and can be combined with Gunpowder to create their throwable Splash Potion counterparts.

History
Originally potions were to be brewed in Cauldrons. According to code found in the Beta 1.9 Pre-release 2, Potions were brewed by adding water to a Cauldron, and then combining ingredients. Ingredients in the correct combination would confer beneficial potion effects with no downside, or additional negative status effects. The system was complicated, lacked a GUI, and formed many duplicate potions(i.e. two potions that where exactly the same could be made in many different ways), so Notch and Jeb came up with a different brewing method and potions are now made in Brewing Stands, the Cauldron on the other side was not taken out completely, and is now used to hold up water, which is useful for brewing. Doing so simplified potion making by adding a GUI and taking down duplicate potions, so the total sum of different possible potions went down from 150 potions to an estimated 43 different potions. The new method caused some potion effects to become inaccessible, for example: Nausea, Blindness and Invisibility.

In Beta 1.9 Pre-release 4 the brewing of Splash Potions was introduced, allowing one to combine Gunpowder into any potion turning it to a kind of throwable grenade.

Trivia

 * Only 1 ingredient is needed to brew into up to 3 potions. These three potions do not necessarily have to be the same.
 * Upgrading an Instant Health Potion (I) with glowstone dust has no downsides.
 * Upgrading a Fire Resistance Potion with redstone dust has no downsides.
 * Although it has been said by Jeb that in the 1.9 pre-release 3 there were 161 possible different potion combinations and there may be 2,653 in the future, in the 1.9 Pre-release 3 it was only possible to make 22 different potions without the use of external programs. 19 of those 22 potions had effects, and 8 different attributes were available.
 * The mundane Potion made from redstone has a different metadata (64) than the mundane potion made from any other ingredient (8192). Unlike Mundane 64, Mundane 8192 can be made into a splash mundane potion by adding gunpowder.