How to Make a Bucket in Minecraft?

In Minecraft, a bucket is an essential tool you’ll use often. It allows you to carry and store several liquid substances for a variety of purposes.

Below, we’ll show you the bucket recipe in Minecraft and how to make the most out of your new tool.

Let's get started!

What Can You Do With Minecraft Buckets?

Buckets are versatile tools that store water, milk, and even snow and lava.

You can utilize them for different tasks, such as emptying cauldrons, milking farm animals, transporting sea creatures, and for fuel.

Buckets also come in handy for a breathing underwater hack and removing debuffs.

How to Make a Bucket in Minecraft?

Crafting a bucket is simple and only requires a few steps.

1. Gather Iron

In most cases, you'll need to mine underground to find iron ore. Look for the gray blocks with pinkish spots.

2. Make Iron Ingots

Power up your furnace with coal or charcoal and place the iron in the top slot. You'll get one ingot for every ore you put in, so keep going until you have three.

3. Follow the Minecraft Bucket Recipe

Now that you have the necessary materials, it's time to open your crafting table. Place the three iron ingots in a "V" shape — two in the first and last column on the first row and one in the very center of the crafting grid.

How to Use a Bucket in Minecraft?

Once you have your bucket, it's time to put it to use! Here are some of the most common options:

Make a Bucket of Water in Minecraft

You can collect water from oceans, lakes, and even cauldrons by right-clicking on the water with an empty bucket in hand.

Alternatively, putting a wet sponge in the upper slot of a furnace and an empty bucket under it will fill it with water and get you a dry sponge you can reuse.

Once you fill the Minecraft iron bucket, it stays in your inventory with the water. Then you can dig out your own lake or a pool and use it to create a water source block to fill it up.

In the same way, you can make waterfalls that look cool and work as elevators.

Get a Bucket of Milk in Minecraft

Milk is a food item obtained by right-clicking on a cow, mooshroom, or goat with an empty bucket.

You can drink the milk from the bucket or bake a cake with it. It doesn't have a nutritional purpose, instead, it removes all status effects, both positive and negative.

So, it’ll help you with mining fatigue, poison, or weakness but also get rid of your jump boost, regeneration, or invisibility.

Make a Lava Bucket in Minecraft

Lava is found both deep underground and on the surface. If you're not careful, it can kill you instantly! When you come across some lava, get your empty bucket ready and right-click on it to fill it.

Just like with water, you can make a lava bucket and fill a cauldron or create a lava source block anywhere you want. However, don't do it close to anything you don't want to catch fire. Lava buckets work as furnace fuel as well, smelting up to 100 items.

They also come in handy for different traps and trading with journeyman-level armorer villagers. In the Bedrock Edition, they’ll certainly give you an emerald for a lava bucket, and in Java, there's a 40% chance of this happening.

Get a Bucket of Snow in Minecraft

You’ll find snow on the surface in cold biomes, but you can only fill a bucket with powder snow. It generates naturally in groves and snowy slopes, and the only way to get it is by right-clicking on it with a bucket as it can't be mined.

If you place it on the ground, it becomes a trap. If players or mobs walk over it, they’ll sink in and start taking freezing damage. To protect yourself from powder snow, use leather armor or melt it with fire.

Get a Pufferfish in a Bucket

Pufferfish commonly inhabit lukewarm or warm ocean biomes. You can catch them with a water bucket to keep them alive and transfer them to your pool or a lake.

Puffers are used to create a Potion of Waterbreathing, heal wolves, help cats mature faster, and trade. Master-level fisherman villagers give emeralds for pufferfish.

Similarly, in Minecraft, you can get a bucket of cod, salmon, tropical fish, and axolotls.

What's more, a bucket of any fish is an infinite and portable water source. When you use it on an empty block, it transfers the fish and the water, and you get back the bucket. You can then recover the fish, but the water will remain where you put it. 

That allows you to create numerous water sources with only one bucket.

Breathe Underwater With an Empty Bucket in MC

An empty bucket can save your life underwater if you don't have a Potion of Waterbreathing. When running out of air and taking drowning damage, quickly switch to a bucket in your hand.

Get to the bottom or a wall, right-click with the bucket on a solid block, and it’ll drain the water into the bucket, allowing you to take a breath. If you do that quickly, you'll be able to move around and breathe underwater.

How to Make a Bucket in Minecraft Without Iron?

Unfortunately, you won’t be able to make a wooden bucket in Minecraft or any other kind besides iron. However, you can find one in chests in woodland mansions, dungeons, and villages.

Alternatively, you can buy a bucket of any fish from a villager, and when you transfer the fish, it’ll give you back the bucket.

To Wrap Up

Now that you know how to make a bucket in Minecraft, you can benefit from its versatility.

Create infinite water sources, lava traps, get the "I am a Marine Biologist" achievement, or anything else you set your mind to.

As you see, buckets are among the essential items in the game, so make sure you have one in your inventory at all times.