Minecraft Basics
Crafting Recipe
Bucket

How to Make a Bucket in Minecraft - Easy Guide (2023)

Buckets are one of the most underrated and vital items in Minecraft. They help create food, transport liquids, and move mobs even more freely than a boat. Whether you're a dedicated speedrunner or seeking fame on the top Minecraft 1.20 servers, buckets are essential in your toolkit. Join us on this journey as we delve into the game and learn how to make a bucket in Minecraft.

How to Make a Bucket in Minecraft (2023)

Explore our detailed guide to buckets in Minecraft, covering everything you need to know. From the crafting recipe to usage, each section is arranged in order to prevent any misunderstandings.

Items Required to Make a Bucket

You only need the following items to craft a bucket in Minecraft:


  • Crafting Table
  • 3 Raw Iron
  • Furnace

Buckets, being a basic item, only require three iron ingots to craft. But, to get these ingots, you first need to obtain raw iron by mining iron ore. Our Minecraft 1.20 ore distribution guide will lead you to it in no time. Once you find an ore block, you need to use a stone pickaxe or better to mine it.

After obtaining the raw iron, place it inside a furnace and use fuel like charcoal to smelt it into an iron ingot. Each piece of raw iron gives out a single ingot so you need to mine at least three iron ores to make a bucket in Minecraft.

Crafting Recipe of a Bucket

Crafting a bucket becomes a piece of cake once you've gathered all the required iron ingots. Simply open your crafting table and arrange the iron ingots in a V shape. Once you've done that, your bucket will be ready for use.

Where to Find a Bucket in Minecraft

If crafting doesn't glow as planned, you can also obtain buckets in the chest of the following structures:


  • Dungeon
  • Villager (savanna only)
  • Woodland Mansion

Each of these structures has a fairly similar rate but your best chances are with Dungeons and Woodland Mansions. Though, finding any of these locations is a challenge in itself. So, make sure to check our list of the best Minecraft survival seeds to make the search easier.

What Can You Store in a Minecraft Bucket

Buckets are the most versatile storage item in Minecraft allowing to transfer of liquids and even mobs. You can use a bucket to carry the following entities:

  • Water (source block)
  • Lava (source block)
  • Powder Snow
  • Milk (from cows, Mooshrooms and goats)
  • Cod
  • Salmon
  • Tropical Fish
  • Pufferfish
  • Axolotl
  • Tadpole

When you store aquatic mobs in a bucket, it automatically fills up with a water source block. This is vital to help the mob survive during travel and can be released when you place down the bucketed mob.

Uses of a Bucket in Minecraft

As you already know, the most common way players use a bucket is by picking up and placing water and lava blocks. But, this item has a bunch of additional uses as well including:

  • Food: You can directly drink a milk bucket to replenish your hunger and even get rid of any effects on your body. It even acts as a crafting ingredient to make a cake in Minecraft.
  • Cauldron: A bucket can be used to fill up and empty a cauldron with water or lava in it.
  • Fuel: The lava bucket is the longest-lasting fuel for finances and blast furnaces in Minecraft.
  • Water Collection: If you place an empty bucket in the fuel cell of a furnace while drying a wet sponge the bucket gets filled with water.
  • Nether Portal: A bucket gives you the freedom to place water and lava wherever you want. This enables players to quickly create a Nether portal in Minecraft that is made up of obsidian blocks, that spawn when water and lava combine.

Make and Use Buckets in Minecraft

Leaving the basics behind, players have discovered a variety of additional uses for buckets in Minecraft over the years. One of them is avoiding fall damage by placing water before hitting the ground, making it a game-changer if you want to master the best Minecraft parkour maps. But this is just the beginning. Thanks to the best Minecraft mods, buckets also serve as vessels, block pickers, and a lot more. The only limitation is your creativity. With that said, how are you planning to use your buckets in Minecraft? Drop your ideas in a Discord server!


Udayveer Singh

Udayveer Singh is a contributor to our news feed here at Servers-Minecraft and is passionate about all things Minecraft!