How to Make a Hopper in Minecraft: Recipe, farm…

Once you’ve understood the basics of your base in Minecraft, the hopper becomes an indispensable tool to make your life easier. It is notably used in all factories. In this article, I explain how to craft and use it.

The crafting recipe for a Minecraft hopper involves placing a chest in the center, then surrounding it with 5 iron bars, forming a “V” shape with the bars (one in the middle of the bottom row, and two on either side of the chest).

You now have the short answer to your question, but don’t miss the rest to learn about my advice on this topic.

The recipe for the hopper in Minecraft

A hopper is crafted on a crafting table, with 5 iron bars and a chest. The chest goes in the center of the design, and the 5 bars around it, following this pattern:

To remember, notice the similarities between the shape created by your bars and the final drawing of a hopper. The chest represents the fact that the hopper can store some items.

The recipe for a hopper is therefore not very complicated, and uses basic items from the game. If you are a beginner or need to craft a large quantity, I still recommend reading on to discover some additional tips.

The items required to make a hopper

Creating a hopper requires a chest and 5 iron ingots. A chest is crafted with 8 planks, which is 2 logs.

Chest

Chests can be found in villages, temples, and other abandoned ships. However, it will be easier to craft them manually, using 8 planks in your crafting table, arranged like so:

You will need 2 logs per chest, this therefore adds up quickly for any factory that requires a lot of hoppers. Plan, for example, 1 stack of wood (64) for 32 hoppers in a factory.

Iron

Iron is obtained by mining underground. You will get raw iron, which will then have to be smelted in a furnace to turn it into an ingot, usable in all recipes (tools, armor, and hopper particularly).

The creation of hopper thus requires iron but also coal, to smelt the latter.

If you are short of raw iron, I recommend reading this article. I’ve mined an enormous area, and noted the best layers to find iron in Minecraft. This will help you to know where to mine to optimize your chances of gathering a lot of iron in a short time.

You now know which ingredients are necessary for the creation of hoppers in Minecraft, and the best way to farm the corresponding resources. Let’s see now how to use these hoppers to enhance your gaming experience.

Using a hopper

General Principle

In Minecraft, a hopper is used to move items from one point to another. The hopper can either collect the items directly from the surface, or convey them from or to a chest, a furnace, or any other storage element.

For example, if you have a semi-automatic field that uses water to break the crops, you can place hoppers at the bottom of the field to automatically harvest the resources and transport them to a chest.

Hoppers can also be used to sort items. They are often used in chest rooms, where you have a chest that you empty your inventory into. Then, a circuit made up of many hoppers is used to redirect each item into the corresponding chest.

The possibilities offered by hoppers are pretty impressive, but let’s start with a simple example.

Example: A simple automatic furnace

At the beginning of your adventure, you’re going to heavily use your furnaces to cook a whole lot of resources (ores, food, etc.). And waiting for each item to be cooked before moving on to the next stack isn’t really the best use of your gaming time.

That’s why I often set up this type of furnace near my base:

By just using 2 hoppers, I can automate the cooking of my items and optimize the coal usage and the time needed to cook everything.

Place a furnace, then 2 hoppers as shown in the screenshot (be careful, the orientation of the hopper is important). Then place a chest on each hopper. Fill the top one with the items to be cooked, and the second one with coal or any other fuel.

And there you have it! You just have to wait while the furnace operates at full capacity :-).
There are upgraded versions of this setup, with multiple furnaces. A chest cart then distributes the items among all the furnaces, but the principle remains the same.

Note : The hopper also allows you to automatically collect honey, as explained in this other article that I wrote on the site.