How to Upgrade an Iron Barrel to a Gold Barrel

Craft the Upgrade Item

To move from an Iron Barrel to a Gold Barrel, you need the Iron to Gold Barrel Upgrade item. This is a crafting_shaped recipe. Place the required ingredients in the crafting grid in the correct pattern to produce the upgrade item.

Apply the Upgrade

Once you have the Iron to Gold Barrel Upgrade, you do not need to break your existing Iron Barrel. The upgrade is applied directly to the placed barrel. Have the upgrade item in hand and use it on the Iron Barrel block. The Iron Barrel is replaced in place by a Gold Barrel, keeping its position and contents.

If you prefer, you can also craft a Gold Barrel from scratch using its own crafting_shaped recipe, but the upgrade path is the intended progression and saves you from losing the barrel's stored items.

What You Get

The Gold Barrel is the next tier above Iron. It offers more storage capacity than the Iron Barrel. From here you can continue the progression by crafting a Gold to Diamond Barrel Upgrade to reach the Diamond Barrel, and later an Obsidian To Netherite Barrel Upgrade path if you go through Obsidian. Each upgrade item follows the same apply-in-place logic: hold the upgrade, use it on the matching barrel block, and the block transforms without being destroyed.