Expanding Your Potion Arsenal with the Not Enough Potions Mod
Vanilla Minecraft brewing offers a decent starting point, but serious alchemists quickly hit a ceiling. The Not Enough Potions mod, paired with its required Potion Core library, shatters that ceiling by introducing a full crafting pipeline: grinding materials, mixing finished brews, and discovering effects that simply do not exist in the base game. This guide covers what the mod adds, how to get it running, and what to expect in terms of version compatibility.
Core Additions: Two New Workstations
The mod replaces the single-step brewing stand workflow with a two-stage process. You will need to build both new blocks to access the full recipe tree.
Mortar and Pestle
This block grinds items into powders and essences. Two variants exist: a granite version and a diamond-tipped version. The granite tool handles roughly 20 uses before breaking, while the diamond version is required for hard materials like obsidian or diamonds. Grinding is the only way to obtain components such as Nether Star Dust or Diamond Dust, which are prerequisites for high-tier potions.
Mixing Cauldron
The second key block is the mixing cauldron. Place three finished potions inside and click repeatedly to combine them. If the recipe is valid, the liquid color shifts to indicate the resulting effect. Placing the cauldron over a fire source doubles the mixing speed, encouraging players to design proper lab layouts rather than cramming everything into a corner.
Grinding Recipes and Powder Economy
Mortar recipes follow a simple pattern: insert an item, click to grind, and collect the output. Below are the essential conversions:
- Sugar cane + 3 grinds = 1 sugar
- Bone + 4 grinds = 3 bone meal
- Blaze rod + 8 grinds = 2 blaze powder
- Glowstone block + 16 grinds = 4 glowstone dust
- Sea lantern + 16 grinds = 4 prismarine shards and 5 crystals
- Nether star + 40 grinds = 3 nether star dust
- Diamond + 100 grinds = 1 diamond dust
These powders feed directly into the cauldron and brewing stand recipes, creating a meaningful resource loop for mid-game players.
Cauldron Mixing: Beyond Vanilla Effects
The cauldron unlocks effects that cannot be brewed in a standard stand. Recipes combine logical properties: mixing Haste with Strength yields Haste, while Instant Health plus two bowls of mushroom stew produces Saturation. Notable examples include:
- Haste: Speed + Speed + Strength
- Saturation I: Instant Health + Mushroom Stew + Mushroom Stew
- Absorption: Ground Golden Apple x2 + Instant Health
- Mending: Regeneration + Experience Bottle x2
- Explosion: Fire Resistance + Explosive Mixture x2
- Lightning: Charged Mixture + Explosion + Fire Resistance
- Magic Shield: Iron Skin x2 + Magic Focus
Some recipes are two-stage. Saturation II, for example, requires a finished Saturation I potion plus two rabbit stews. This layered system rewards experimentation and turns alchemy into a genuine research tree.
Updated Brewing Stand and Hidden Vanilla Recipes
The mod also refreshes the vanilla brewing stand model, now displaying the actual potion and ingredient inside. More importantly, many vanilla effects that previously lacked recipes have been given formulas. You can now brew Resistance, Luck, Blindness, Nausea, Levitation, and Diamond Skin using the mortar and stand. All potions retain standard modifiers: gunpowder for splash, glowstone for potency, and redstone for duration.
Configuration and Modpack Suitability
Every recipe in the mod is editable via configuration files. You can remove, alter, or add recipes for the brewing stand, mortar, cauldron, crafting table, and furnace. This makes the mod highly adaptable for custom modpacks and servers with unique progression economies. The mod is explicitly permitted in modpacks as long as the author and official page are credited.
How to Install and Version Compatibility
To install, you must first place Potion Core into the mods folder, followed by the Not Enough Potions jar file. The mod requires a compatible loader such as Forge or NeoForge, depending on the Minecraft version you are running. The mod supports several recent Minecraft releases, and both files must match your game version exactly. No conflicts have been reported with major tech or magic mods, so adding it to an existing world is generally safe. For a streamlined setup, you can download Expanding Your Potion Arsenal with the Not Enough Potions Mod for Minecraft directly from curated modpack catalogs that handle dependency installation automatically. If you prefer manual control, the standard folder drop method works fine.
Final Assessment
Not Enough Potions transforms brewing from a minor side activity into a full progression branch. The mortar and cauldron add meaningful crafting steps, the recipe tree is deep, and the configuration options make it a reliable addition to both single-player worlds and multiplayer servers. If vanilla potions feel limiting, this mod provides the exact expansion you are looking for.