Every Single Way to Use a Minecraft Cauldron (2024)

In our guide on how to make a cauldron, we focused only on the crafting recipe and not the various ways you can use this block in-game. So, in this guide, we will be taking a look at every single use of the cauldron in Minecraft. You’ll be surprised to learn that there are almost ten different functions the cauldron has. Some of them appear only in the Bedrock edition, but most of them are common to both editions of the game. With that said, let’s learn how to use a cauldron right away.

1. Water Holder

Cauldron’s most obvious function is to hold water. You can right-click the cauldron with a water bucket to fill it completely. Alternatively, the game allows for automated filling of the cauldron in some cases. One of them being the rain. The cauldron slowly fills up if it’s directly exposed to rain.

Moreover, stalactitesformed from pointed dripstone that have have water above can slowly fill the cauldron kept below. To empty the full cauldron, you can right-click it with an empty bucket that’ll scoop up the water.

During these automatic ways of filling, the cauldron doesn’t fill up completely at once, but in stages. The first stage is 1/3rd filled, the second one is 2/3rd filled, and the third one is filled fully. You can manually achieve these water levels by using glass bottles. Right-clicking an empty cauldron with a water bottle will fill it to the first stage.

And doing the same with other water bottles will add an additional stage to the water level. If you’d like to remove some, but not all water, you can do so by right-clicking the cauldron with an empty glass bottle, which will absorb one third of the water.

Even though the water is in the cauldron, it doesn’t behave as regular water sources. It cannot:

• Negate Explosion Damage
• Make Sounds and Particles
• Negate Fall Damage
• Allow Tridents with Riptide Minecraft Enchantment to Work
• Deal Damage to Endermen, Blazes and Striders Minecraft Mobs
• Deal Drowning Damage

Apart from those, cauldron is actually capable of holding water in the Nether dimension. Because of this, it’s possible to extinguish yourself in this fiery place. Though, keep in mind that every time you jump in the cauldron to put out the fire, one third of the water level will deplete.

2. Lava Holder

Similarly to water, you can also store lava in cauldrons. You can right-click an empty cauldron with a lava bucket to fill it. And to remove the lava, you can right-click the lava cauldron with an empty bucket.

If the cauldron already has water inside it, right-clicking it with a lava bucket completely removes water and fills the cauldron with lava. The same happens vice versa.

It’s not possible to use an empty glass bottle to scoop up lava, so there are no stages to the lava level inside cauldrons, just an empty and filled versions. It is possible however to place pointed dripstone above a cauldron with lava one block above.

This will after some time fill the cauldron with lava, essentially being an infinite lava generator. Furthermore, the cauldron filled with lava emits a light level of 15, making it one of the game’s light source blocks.

3. Powder Snow Holder

If you’ve ever explored snowy Minecraft biomes on foot, you’d have probably stumbled upon snow blocks that you fall through and deal freezing damage. This is powder snow. It is fairly useful in some situations and luckily it’s completely renewable, thanks to cauldrons.

Placing a cauldron in a cold biome and having it directly exposed to the sky will see it accumulate powder snow after some time. If it snows in cold biomes, the cauldron will start filling with layers of snow, similarly to how water fills.

When the cauldron is full of powder snow, you can right-click it with an empty bucket to collect it. Otherwise, if the cauldron is not filled you cannot take out the snow from the inside of it. Also, you can easily fill the cauldron with powder snow if you have the powder snow bucket.

4. Removing Dyes

This is one of the lesser known facts about the cauldron, but you can use it to remove dyes off of leather armor and shulker boxes in Minecraft. You may do so by right-clicking the water cauldron with leather armor or shulker boxes.

Also, it’s possible to remove the top-most pattern on banners by doing the same action. Similarly to extinguishing yourself in a water cauldron, each wash will remove one third of the cauldron’s water level.

5. Dying Water

In order to dye leather armor in the Bedrock edition, you have to use cauldrons. It means that dying the water first is necessary. You can do this by clicking the secondary action key on a water cauldron while holding a Minecraft color dye of your choice.

After doing so, the water inside the cauldron will change color to match the used dye and the dye will get consumed. You may use different dyes on already-colored water to mix them together. When you use the secondary action key on the cauldron with colored water while holding the piece of leather armor or leather horse armor, that item will get dyed.

Also, one third of the water inside the cauldron will deplete. This use for a cauldron is only available on the Bedrock edition, so Java players can only hope to see it in their world one day.

6. Potion Holder

This is another one of the Bedrock-exclusive uses for the cauldron. It is possible to hold any type of potions in Minecraft and use the secondary action button on an empty cauldron, which will empty the bottle if it was a regular potion or turn splash and lingering bottles into regular empty bottles.

Also, every bottle will increase one level of the cauldron’s capacity, so you will need three potions of the same type to fill the cauldron fully. To take out the potion, you can use the secondary action button on the cauldron with an empty glass bottle.

The cauldron will remember what potion type it holds and will return it to you. Moreover, be careful not to interact with a cauldron with two different potions, as it will remove the first-placed potion completely.

So, if you already have a cauldron fully filled with strength potion that lasts for 6 minutes and accidentally use the strength potion that lasts for 2 minutes and 15 seconds on it, the initial potion of strength will completely disappear (indicated by smoke particles). The same happens if you want to put lava or water in the cauldron.

Furthermore, if you use a regular arrow on a cauldron with a potion inside, the arrow will turn into a tipped arrow variant. If you use a stack with a single arrow on a cauldron, that arrow will consume 1/4 of the potion inside.

However, this is not at all efficient as you can use a stack of 16 arrows on a cauldron and that same action will consume one-fourth of the potion. So, if you use a full stack of 64 arrows on a cauldron fully filled with a potion, all 64 arrows will turn into the tipped version.

7. Villager Workstation Block

Cauldrons can also be used as villagers work stations. You can place this block near an unemployed villager, and they will soon claim it and become a leatherworker. These villager jobs in Minecraft can sell leather armor and leather horse armor and most importantly – saddles, that you can use to ride various mobs like horses and camels.

8. Redstone Component

One of the useful and practical properties of cauldrons is that they behave as a redstone component. When a redstone comparator reads the output from a cauldron filled with water, it’ll emit a signal depending on the water level in that cauldron.

Moreover, it also outputs the signal from a cauldron filled with lava, but only in the full state. Here is what the redstone signal pattern looks like:

• Empty cauldron – redstone signal 0
• One-third-filled cauldron – redstone signal 1
• Two-third-filled cauldron – redstone signal 2
• Fully filled cauldron – redstone signal 3

9. Decorative Block

Thanks to the cauldron’s details, depth, and color, it is frequently used as a decorative block. It can be a part of a complex design for an object of sorts or it can represent exactly what it is. Either way, in order to use cauldrons regularly, you’ll need a good source of iron ingots, so an iron farm is the best solution.

So, there you have it, everyone. Now you know all the uses of a cauldron in Minecraft. As you can see, these functions are highly diverse and also rather important for the gameplay. So, by making the cauldron you can get access to some in-game features and also make some blocks completely renewable. With that said, what will you use cauldrons for? Let us know in the comments below!