Alchemy: How to Brew Potions and Use the Alchemy Bench

Question

I cannot figure out how to use the alchemy bench. I have been trying to brew Spirits.

I am encountering three main problems.

1. It states that the recipe includes "spirits" (this is a base alchemy ingredient that just happens to have the same name as this potion). But at no point in the recipe is it used.
2. I need to add the ground (grindings takes a turn or 2) sage and mint 1 turn after the st johns, but the bench does not seem to want to allow me to pick up the sage and mint until after the st johns.
   • Can you grind both at the same time, or does putting a second herb in the mortar erase the last one?
   • Boiling seems really hard to time correctly, you cannot both work the bellows and use the timer, and 1 turn is really short compared to the nature lag that comes with using the bench and waiting for animations to finish.
3. Clicking the still does nothing. I have no idea how to distill a mixture.

Answer 1

All recipes contain a single ingredient which I will call a "Base Alchemy Ingredient" or BAI (Spirits, Water, Wine, Oil), which you are supplied with an infinite amount of at all alchemy benches. These are the liquids that you boil the herbs in. You must select one of these and add it to the cauldron before any other steps can be taken.

Steps for brewing Spirits (this works with a level 1 character): After adding the Spirits to the cauldron, prepare your ground herbs (Sage and mint). Add both of them to the mortar, click the pestle to grind them up, then click the plate to empty them out.

Pick up your first ingredient (St. Johns Wort) and start pumping the bellows. A few pulls seems to produce around a single turn of boiling, while lots of puts seems to max out at around 2 turns. Max out the fire and add the Wort right away, flip the timer as soon as possible. Pick up the dish. As the timer is getting close add the dish. The boiling should stop around the 2nd turn mark. Pick up the phial and click the still, you will reach for the bellows, pump a few times and the game should notify you that you have created Spirits.