Barrels, turns out, can be made from pretty much anything.
And you make ’em like this
But they do more than just sit there and look pretty. What exactly? Well, quite a lot.
Composting
You can put pretty much any organic matter into a barrel…
Let it sit for a bit…
And eventually, you’ll end up with dirt!
Collecting rain
Barrels have this wonderful property: they can collect water, from rain!
Clay
Once you have enough rainwater, you can put some dust that you got from your hammer into the barrel, and get some clay!
Netherrack and Endstone
If your barrel can hold lava without catching fire, you can mix in some redstone or glowstone to congeal the lava into netherrack or endstone, respectively.
Witchwater
If you were lucky enough to get some spores from a sieve, try adding them to a barrel of water. The spores have a supernatural effect, fermenting the water into the vile substance known as… witchwater.
Witchwater has some pretty nasty properties, mutating friendly mobs into monsters, monsters into nightmares, and, less extremely, can transform sand into soul sand when still in a barrel.
Slime
Nothing’s worse than spoiled milk, right? It gets all chunky and nasty. Fortunately, however, there is a way to turn this into a good thing!
Mix some milk into water…
Let it sit for a bit, get all nice and… green?
Well, what do you know? You grew a slime.
Dolls
With some gems and a handful of porcelain, you could sculpt a friend to keep you company up there in the sky. But he looks rather plain doesn’t he? We should give him a coat of paint.
This guy has quite the hot temper! He should take a nice bath to cool off, but he insists on having the water scorching so it doesn’t help much. I think he was actually more angry after the bath. He started throwing things and mumbling about burning the whole building down.
HINT: Add it to a barrel of lava and wait.
This friend is a bit on the goth side. He likes movies about vampires and witches. He’s been practicing to be a vocalist in a metal band. Not a bad guy overall, but keep an eye on him. If he thinks you’re not looking, he’ll pocket anything he can get his hands on.
HINT: Add it to a barrel of witchwater and wait.