What It Does
Better Recipe Book is a client side mod by marshmallow that extends Minecraft's vanilla recipe book system. Out of the box, Minecraft only shows a recipe book for the crafting table and furnace. This mod adds that same kind of interface to two stations that never had one: the brewing stand and the smithing table. You get a recipe book list of what you can brew or smith, right inside those menus.
Key Features
The mod adds a handful of quality of life tools on top of the new interfaces. You can pin recipes you use often to the top of the list with a keybind, so you're not scrolling to find them every time. There's an instant craft toggle: turn it on and a single click crafts the item, hold shift and it crafts as many as your materials allow. If you want to see recipes you haven't unlocked yet, you can turn that on too, though that visibility option is client side only.
Recipes can also be ungrouped, which matters if you've pinned a specific variant of a recipe and don't want it folded back into a group with similar ones. Here's the thing, smaller touches include scrolling through recipe book pages with your mouse wheel, keeping the crafting screen centered when the book is open, and making furnace recipes actually visible in their recipe book view. The unlock animation that plays when you learn a new recipe can be switched off, and if none of this is for you, the recipe book itself can be disabled entirely.
Compatibility
Better Recipe Book runs on Fabric, Forge, and NeoForge, and is built against Minecraft 1.21.1, 1.21, 1.20.4, 1.20.2, 1.20.1, and 1.20. It needs to be installed on the client; the project lists server side support as unsupported, so it's a local install rather than something a server needs to run. On Fabric it depends on Architectury API and Fabric API. On Forge and NeoForge it depends on Architectury API alone. The mod is released under the MIT License.
Who It's For
This is aimed at anyone who finds vanilla's brewing and smithing menus clunky to navigate, especially players who brew or smith often enough to want a pinnable list instead of memorizing ingredient slots. If you've ever wished the furnace recipe book didn't hide half its entries, or wanted to craft in bulk by holding shift instead of clicking one at a time, the instant craft toggle and interface additions solve that directly.
