The Ultimate Minecraft How-To Guide: Crafting, Taming, Potions & More

Minecraft has been around for over a decade, and people are still Googling basic stuff every single day. How do I make a saddle? How do I breed horses? What does density even do?

No judgment. The game never really explains itself. You’re just dropped into a world with trees and skeletons and expected to figure it out. Some people love that. Others open a browser tab every five minutes.

This guide covers everything. Crafting, taming, potions, animals, and game mechanics. Please bookmark it so you don’t have to search for the same items repeatedly.

How to Make a Saddle in Minecraft

This is one of the most searched Minecraft questions for a good reason. You cannot craft a saddle in Minecraft. There’s no recipe. You have to find one.

Here’s where to look:

• Chests in dungeons — underground rooms with a monster spawner. One of the most common places is here.
• Nether fortresses — chest loot in the Nether has a decent saddle drop rate.
• Desert temples — buried structures with four chests underneath a pressure plate trap.
• Village chests — saddles appear in village weaponsmith and tanner chests.
• Trading with a leatherworker villager — level 3 leatherworkers will trade a saddle for emeralds.
• Fishing — yes, you can actually fish up a saddle. It’s rare, but it happens.

The fastest method if you’re in the early game is to find a village and either loot the chests or grind emeralds to trade with the leatherworker. Dungeon hunting takes longer but is more reliable if you’re exploring underground anyway.

Once you have a saddle, right-click a tamed horse, pig, or strider to equip it.

How to Breed Horses in Minecraft

Before you can breed horses, you need to tame them. And before you can tame them, you need to find two horses in the same area. Plains and savannas are the best biomes for finding them.

How to Tame a Horse in Minecraft

Taming is simple but takes a few tries:

1. Approach the horse with empty hands (no item selected)
2. Right-click to mount it
3. The horse will throw you off. Get back on. Keep doing it.
4. Eventually hearts will appear above the horse. That means it’s tamed.

Each horse has a hidden temper value between 0 and 99. Every time you mount it, you have a chance of taming it based on that value. Feeding the horse before mounting speeds the process up. Golden apples and golden carrots work best for raising the temper fast.

Breeding

Once you have two tamed horses:

1. Feed each horse a golden apple or golden carrot
2. Hearts will appear above both of them
3. They’ll move toward each other and a foal will appear

What do horses eat in Minecraft when you want to breed them? Golden apples or golden carrots are the only items that trigger breeding mode. Regular apples and wheat won’t work for breeding, though they do help with taming.

The foal inherits a mix of its parents’ stats. Speed, jump height, and health are all passed down with some randomness. If you want swift horses, breed your fastest horses together repeatedly and keep the best offspring.

You can also breed a horse with a donkey to produce a mule. Mules can’t be bred further, but they can carry a chest, which horses can’t.

How to Tame Cats in Minecraft

Cats are found in villages and swamp huts. To tame a cat:

1. Get raw cod or raw salmon from fishing
2. Approach the cat slowly. Don’t run or it’ll bolt.
3. Hold the raw fish and right-click the cat
4. Keep feeding until hearts appear

It usually takes several fish. Once tamed, the cat follows you around and will scare off Creepers and Phantoms nearby. Honestly, the cat is one of the more useful pets in the game.

Tamed cats also bring you gifts when you sleep. Random items like string, feathers, and occasionally rabbit’s feet. It’s not game-changing, but it’s a nice bonus.

To make a cat sit, right-click it. Right-click again to make it follow you. Simple.

What Do Armadillos Eat in Minecraft

Armadillos were added in the 1.21 update and are found in savanna biomes and badlands.

To breed armadillos, feed them spider eyes. That’s it. They’ll enter love mode and produce a baby armadillo.

Armadillos also drop armadillo scutes when they shed, which happens naturally over time. Scutes are used to craft wolf armor. If you’re into having a combat-ready wolf companion, armadillos are the mob you need to be farming.

They roll into a ball when threatened by players sprinting nearby or undead mobs. In that state they stop dropping scutes temporarily. So if you’re farming scutes, move slowly around them.

How to Make Paper in Minecraft

Paper is one of the more useful crafting materials and pretty easy to make. You need sugarcane.

How to Grow Sugar Cane in Minecraft

Sugar cane grows naturally near water in most biomes. To farm it:

1. Find sugarcane or buy it from a wandering trader
2. Place it on sand, dirt, or grass next to a water block
3. Wait for it to grow to three blocks tall
4. Break the top two blocks and leave the bottom one planted
5. It’ll regrow on its own

Sugarcane grows one block at a time and takes a while without bone meal. Building an automated farm with pistons and observers is the best long-term solution if you need a lot of paper.

Crafting Paper

To craft paper, place three pieces of sugarcane in a horizontal row across the middle of a crafting table. You get 3 papers per craft.

Paper is used for:

• Books (paper + leather)
• Maps
• Cartography tables
• Trading with librarian villagers for good enchanted books

How to Make a Compass in Minecraft

A compass always points toward your world spawn point, not your bed. That’s a common confusion. It’s useful in the early game but less relevant once you have maps.

Crafting Recipe

You need 4 iron ingots and 1 redstone dust.

Place redstone dust in the center of the crafting table. Put iron ingots above, below, to the left, and to the right of it (not in the corners). That provides you one compass.

To craft a map in Minecraft, place a compass in the center of the crafting table and surround it with 8 pieces of paper. The map will show the area around where you crafted it. Right-click to open, and it fills in as you explore.

How to Make a Fence in Minecraft

Fences are straightforward. You need 4 wooden planks and 2 sticks.

Place 2 sticks in the middle column (top and center rows) and fill the left and right columns of those same rows with wooden planks. That makes 3 fences per craft.

Fences are one block tall, but mobs and players can’t jump over them without a fence gate because of how hitboxes work. It is very useful for animal pens.

Mix fence types carefully. Oak fences don’t connect to brick fences either. If you want a mixed look, you’ll need to plan the layout.

How to Make a Torch in Minecraft

This is one of the first things you will ever craft. One stick and one coal or charcoal are placed vertically in the crafting grid (coal on top, stick below). Makes 4 torches.

How to Make Charcoal in Minecraft

If you don’t have coal yet, charcoal is the alternative. Smelt any wooden log in a furnace and you get charcoal. It works identically to coal when used for torches and fuel. The only difference is you can’t trade charcoal with villagers.

Early game, charcoal is often more accessible than coal since you’re already cutting wood for everything else.

How to Make Glass in Minecraft

Smelt sand in a furnace. One sand block gives one glass block. That’s the whole recipe.

Red sand also works and gives the same regular glass. If you want stained glass, use craft glass with dye of any color.

Glass is fragile in vanilla Minecraft. Break it without a silk touch, and it disappears. Always use a silk touch pickaxe if you want to move glass without losing it.

How to Make Bricks in Minecraft

Clay blocks are found in shallow water areas, riverbeds, and lush caves. Mine them to get clay balls.

Smelt clay balls in a furnace to get bricks. Four bricks in a 2×2 pattern on the crafting table gives you one brick block.

Brick blocks are fire resistant and look clean, which makes them popular for building. The downside is that clay can be annoying to find in large quantities. Setting up a clay farm near a river speeds things up.

How to Make a Boat in Minecraft

Five wooden planks are arranged in a U shape on the crafting table (bottom row full, left and right of the middle row filled, center empty). Any wood type works and gives you a matching colored boat.

Boats are fast on water and let you carry a passenger. You can even put mobs in boats to transport them. It is very useful for moving animals between bases.

On ice, boats move incredibly fast. Ice boat highways are a real speedrunning and transportation technique.

How to Make a Beacon in Minecraft

Beacons are late-game items that give area-wide status effects. Getting one takes serious effort.

You need 5 glass blocks, 3 obsidian ones, and 1 nether star. The nether star only drops from the Wither boss, which is one of the hardest fights in the game.

Place glass across the top row, Nether Star in the center, and obsidian across the bottom row of the crafting table.

The beacon itself is just the start. To activate it, you need to build a pyramid of iron, gold, diamond, emerald, or netherite blocks underneath it. The bigger the pyramid (up to 4 layers), the more powerful and wider the effects.

How to Make an Invisible Potion in Minecraft

The correct name is Potion of Invisibility. Here’s how to brew it:

1. First brew a Potion of Night Vision: water bottle and nether wart gives an awkward potion; then add golden carrot
2. Add fermented spider eye to the Potion of Night Vision in the brewing stand
3. That converts it into a Potion of Invisibility

To extend duration, add redstone dust. To make a splash version, add gunpowder.

Invisibility makes you completely invisible to mobs and players, but mobs will still detect you if you get too close or if you’re wearing armor. Take your armor off for full stealth.

How to Make a Night Vision Potion in Minecraft

As covered above: awkward potion (water bottle + nether wart), then add golden carrot. Night vision lets you see clearly underwater and in dark areas without needing torches. It is ideal for mining and ocean exploration.

How to Make a Mud Block in Minecraft

Mud was added in the 1.19 Wild Update. Making it is simple.

Use a water bottle on a dirt block. Right-click dirt while holding a water bottle, and it turns into mud instantly. No crafting table needed.

Mud is used for crafting mud bricks, which are a decent building material with a nice earthy look. Pack mud (mud plus wheat) into mud bricks on the crafting table.

How to Make an Armor Stand in Minecraft

You need 6 sticks and 1 smooth stone slab.

Place the smooth stone slab in the center of the bottom row. Sticks should be placed on both the left and right sides of the middle row. Fill the entire top row with sticks. That gives you one armor stand.

Armor stands display your armor sets and can be posed in Java Edition. In Bedrock they have more pose options through the crouch interaction. This item is useful for decoration, storage, and some clever redstone contraptions.

How to Make a Pickaxe in Minecraft

Place three planks or other materials across the top row of the crafting table, one stick in the center, and one stick below it. That’s a pickaxe.

The material determines what it can mine and how durable it is. Wood pickaxes mine stone. Stone pickaxes mine iron. Iron pickaxes mine diamonds. Diamond and netherite mine everything.

Always upgrade your pickaxe as soon as you have the materials. A stone pickaxe over a wooden one makes a significant speed difference. Same with iron to diamond.

How to Make Portals in Minecraft

There are two main portals in Minecraft.

Nether Portal

Mine obsidian (need a diamond or netherite pickaxe, or cheat it with a water and lava trick). Build a rectangular frame at least 4 wide and 5 tall. Light it with flint and steel. Done.

You need flint (from gravel) and an iron ingot to craft fire and steel at the crafting table.

End Portal

In survival mode, you cannot build an End Portal. It only exists in strongholds underground. Find it using Eyes of Ender. Craft Eyes of Ender from blaze powder and ender pearls, then throw them; they will float toward the nearest stronghold.

Once you find the portal room, fill the empty frames with Eyes of Ender to activate it.

What Does Density Do in Minecraft

Density is an enchantment added in the 1.21 update. It applies to maces, which are new weapons introduced in the same update.

Density increases the damage bonus you get from fall height when using the mace’s smash attack. The mace already deals bonus damage based on how far you fell before hitting. Density multiplies that bonus further.

At higher levels, Density turns the mace into an absolutely devastating weapon when you drop from a height onto your enemies. Combined with Wind Charges for boosting yourself upward, you can one-shot most enemies, including bosses.

It’s one of the strongest enchantments in the game right now for damage output.

What Does Breach Do in Minecraft

Breach is another 1.21 enchantment exclusive to maces. It reduces the effectiveness of armor on your target. Specifically, it decreases the armor value of whatever you hit.

This makes Breach particularly effective against heavily armored enemies like other players in PvP or certain mobs with natural armor. The higher the breach level, the more armor reduction it applies.

Density and Breach don’t work together on the same Mace since they serve different purposes. Pick based on your playstyle. Density for PvE and big damage hits. Breach for PvP where enemies wear armor.

How Long Is a Minecraft Day

A full Minecraft day/night cycle is 20 real-world minutes.

• Daytime: 10 minutes
• Sunset/dusk: about 1.5 minutes
• Night: 7 minutes
• Sunrise/dawn: about 1.5 minutes

Daytime is safe for surface exploration. Night is when hostile mobs spawn on the surface. Sleeping in a bed skips the night entirely and resets your spawn point.

If you want to know the exact time in-game, press F3 to open the debug screen. The system shows the “Day” counter and time values there.

How to Allocate More Memory to Minecraft

By default Minecraft doesn’t use much RAM, which causes lag on larger modpacks or high render distances. Allocating more fixes this problem.

Through the Official Launcher

1. Open the Minecraft launcher.
2. Click “Installations” at the top
3. Locate your installation and click the three dots, then “Edit.”
4. Click “More Options”
5. Find the JVM Arguments box
6. Look for -Xmx2G (that’s the default 2GB allocation)
7. Change the number to how much you want. -Xmx4G gives 4GB, -Xmx8G gives 8GB

Don’t allocate more than 70% of your total RAM. If you have 16GB, don’t go above 10-12GB for Minecraft. Too much allocated RAM actually causes garbage collection issues and makes the game perform worse.

If you’re running a heavily modded pack, 6 to 8GB is usually the best option. Vanilla Minecraft runs fine on 2 to 4 GB.

Not sure if your system has enough RAM to spare? Refer to our guide on how much RAM you need for gaming to understand what your system should have.

Is Minecraft Cross-Platform?

Yes, but with limitations.

Bedrock Edition (Windows 10/11, Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, and mobile) supports full cross-platform play across all those devices. A PS5 player can play with a Switch player, a mobile player, and an Xbox player all in the same world.

Java Edition (PC only) does NOT cross-play with Bedrock. Java players can only play with other Java players.

If your friend is on console and you’re on PC, make sure you’re both on Bedrock Edition. Java and Bedrock are essentially different games that happen to share the same name. They have different mechanics, controls, and content in some areas.

You can check the full compatibility details on the official Bedrock Edition wiki page.

Tips to Get Better at Minecraft

A few general things that make a real difference early on:

Strip mining at Y-level -58 or -59 is the most efficient way to find diamonds in the current ore distribution. Caves are faster if you find a good one, but strip mining is more consistent.

Always carry a water bucket. It saves you from lava deaths, puts out fires, and lets you safely fall from heights. This is one of the most important utility items in the game.

Enchant as early as you can. A simple bookshelf setup around an enchanting table gives you level 30 enchantments. Efficiency on a pickaxe speeds up mining dramatically.

Food management matters more than people think. Sprinting drains hunger fast. Keep cooked food on you, and you’ll regenerate health automatically above half hunger.

If you’re struggling with performance on a lower-end PC, our gaming PC optimization guide has some settings adjustments that help with Java Edition specifically. And if you’re considering upgrading your setup, the ultimate guide to buying a gaming PC covers what actually matters for a smooth gaming experience.

Frequently Asked Questions