The Small metal pot is forged from Metal scrap and Metal Fittings at a forge, with a hammer in hand. Fill it at any water source, or pour a Water Bottle into it, then set it down and drop in herbs, roots, mushrooms, food or salt.
Hang the filled pot over a burning campfire or a burning stone furnace and leave it there. Each turn on the fire draws more out of the ingredients, so the brew climbs from weak through mild to potent. Take it off in time. After the sixth turn it is stewed, the pot gathers soot, and eventually it cracks and falls out of the fire.
What comes out depends on the ingredients and on the world. Every world gives its plants their own hidden virtues, so a recipe learned in one world is worth nothing in the next, and the only way to find a good brew is to try it. A brew restores Health, Stamina, Mana, thirst, hunger, Comfort or warmth, or grants a benefit for a few turns. Every brew quenches thirst, since it is mostly water, and no brew changes a character permanently.
Drink straight from the pot while it is hot for extra warmth, or pour the brew into an Empty Bottle to carry. Anything that is not an ingredient burns and ruins the contents, and plain water left to boil long enough leaves a scorched pot.
A pot over the fire fills the room with the smell of everything steeped in it, and the smell grows as the brew does. A pleasant one adds Comfort. Sickly sweetness means poison and a sour reek means the brew will turn your stomach, so a nose is worth as much here as a recipe.