So, you’ve finally started your journey into the Create Mod. You’ve got some water wheels turning, maybe a couple of mechanical presses thumping away, and then you hit the wall. You need a Brass Casing or a Mechanical Arm, and suddenly you realize you can't just mine brass out of a hole in the ground. Minecraft doesn't work like that, and Create certainly doesn't either. Learning how to make brass in minecraft create is basically the "rite of passage" that separates the casual gear-spinners from the serious factory engineers.
Brass is an alloy. It’s a mix of Copper and Zinc. But you can't just slap them together in a crafting table and call it a day. You need heat. You need kinetic energy. Honestly, you need a bit of a setup before you can even think about mass-producing those shiny golden-colored ingots.
The Gear You Actually Need First
Before we even touch a piece of ore, let's talk about the hardware. If you try to do this manually, you’re going to have a bad time. You need a Blaze Burner. This is the heart of the operation. Without a Blaze Burner, your mixer is just a stick stirring cold rocks. You get these by crafting an Empty Blaze Burner (Netherrack, Iron Polished Sheets, or just Iron Ingots depending on your version) and then right-clicking a Blaze or a Blaze Spawner in the Nether. It’s scary, yeah, but necessary.
Once you have your angry fire friend in a jar, you need a Mechanical Mixer and a Basin. The Basin sits on the floor, the Mixer sits one block above it, and you need to feed that Mixer some rotational force. Fast force. If your gears are barely crawling, the mixer won't have enough "oomph" to alloy the metals.
The Ingredients: Copper and Zinc
Copper is everywhere. You’ve probably got chests full of it from your early mining trips. Zinc is the newcomer. If you’re playing a standard Create Mod pack, Zinc spawns at similar levels to Iron. It looks a bit like Iron but with a greenish-grey tint.
Here is the thing most people forget: the ratio. It is a 1:1 ratio. One Copper Ingot plus one Zinc Ingot equals two Brass Ingots. It’s actually a very generous trade-off. You aren't losing mass in the process, which is a nice change of pace for tech mods.
Putting the System Together
Now, let’s build the actual setup for how to make brass in minecraft create.
Place your Basin down. Stick the Mechanical Mixer directly above it. Now, look at the bottom of the Basin. There should be a gap. This is where your Blaze Burner goes. It has to be right underneath to transfer the heat.
- Power the Mixer: Use a Large Cogwheel or a series of shafts to get that Mixer spinning. If it says "Required speed not met," you need to use a Speed Controller or a series of large-to-small gear shifts to kick the RPMs up.
- Feed the Burner: Your Blaze Burner is hungry. It won't heat the Basin unless it’s active. Toss it some coal, charcoal, or a bucket of lava. If it starts turning orange and "dancing," you’re good to go.
- Drop the Ore: Throw your Copper and Zinc into the Basin.
The Mixer will descend, start swirling the metals around like a golden smoothie, and after a few seconds, you’ll see the Brass Ingots pop out or sit in the Basin. If you want to be fancy—and you’re playing Create, so of course you do—you should use a Depot or a Belt with an Andesite Funnel to pull the finished Brass out automatically.
Why You Can’t Skip Brass
You might be thinking, "Can't I just stick with iron and andesite alloy?"
Nope.
Brass is the gateway to "Precision Mechanism" territory. If you want to build a Mechanical Arm to automate your workshop, you need Brass. If you want to use Brass Funnels (which are infinitely better than Andesite ones because you can filter them and set stack sizes), you need Brass. If you want to make a Train Signal or most of the high-tier logistics items, you're looking at Brass.
Basically, Andesite is the Stone Age of Create. Iron/Copper is the Industrial Age. Brass is the Digital Age. Without it, your factory is just a collection of noisy wheels that don't actually do much.
Troubleshooting the Common "It's Not Working" Issues
I’ve seen this a thousand times on Discord servers. Someone has the setup, they have the coal, they have the ore, but the mixer is just hovering there like a disappointed parent.
- Is it hot enough? A regular Blaze Burner works for Brass. But some recipes in add-on mods require "Superheated" flames. For standard Brass, a regular yellow flame is fine. If the burner is extinguished, nothing happens.
- The RPM Problem. Create is picky about speed. If your Mixer is turning too slowly, it won't lower into the Basin. Check your goggles. If they say the speed is too low, you need to gear up.
- The Basin is Full. If there’s a stray piece of cobblestone or some other junk in your Basin, the recipe won't start. Clear it out. Basins don't have a huge inventory.
Automating the Process (The Expert Way)
Once you've made your first few ingots of how to make brass in minecraft create, you should never do it by hand again. That’s the whole point of the mod!
The "pro" move is to set up a Mechanical Drill line that feeds Copper and Zinc ores into a Crushing Wheel setup. The crushed ores then get washed by an Encased Fan blowing through water to give you the pure nuggets or ingots.
These nuggets should then flow via a Conveyor Belt into a Basin that has a permanent Blaze Burner fueled by an automated wood farm (turning logs into charcoal). If you set up a Smart Chute under the Basin filtered to only pull out Brass Ingots, you will have a constant, infinite supply of Brass. It’s a beautiful thing to watch.
Nuance: Modpacks and Crafting Tweaks
It is worth noting that some modpacks (like Create: Above and Beyond or Enigmatica) change these recipes. Sometimes they require molten metals and a fluid mixer instead of just tossing ingots in. Always check your REI or JEI (Just Enough Items) overlay. If you see a fluid icon instead of an ingot icon, you'll need to melt the copper and zinc first using a Melter or a Smeltery and then pipe the liquids into the Basin.
In the base Create mod, though? Keep it simple. Heat, mix, win.
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Practical Next Steps
Now that you've got your brass production online, don't just let it sit there. Your first ten ingots should almost always go toward making Brass Casings.
- Use your first Brass Ingots to craft Brass Sheets by putting the ingots under a Mechanical Press.
- Take those sheets and right-click them onto Stripped Logs. This creates the Brass Casing.
- Use those casings to build Brass Funnels and Smart Chutes.
These two items allow you to control the flow of your factory with surgical precision. You can tell a funnel to "only output exactly 16 pieces of Iron" or "only accept Oak Logs." This is where the mod truly starts to feel like you're building a computer out of brass and wood.
Go find a Blaze, get that burner fueled up, and start alloying. Your automated future depends on it.