Can't seem to brew good anymore

[Lawh]

Not sure why, but I am getting strong potions instead of the highest tier ones. The herbs are dried on a drying rack rather than completely fresh. Is that the cause? I was pretty sure I have used dried herbs before and gotten the highest tier, but I can't be certain as I never paid much attention to it.

[Toblm]

Dried herbs seems to have a slightly lower potency than fresh herbs (of good quality) but from my experience should not prevent high quality potion making. Though it make require more precision on the brew process than using fresh. Also take into account any bonuses you get from time of day depending on your perks.

[Ghetto Lobster]

i dig this realism as an organic chemist; extracting fresh biomass will yield a more potent extract as alot of the low boiling point volatile organic compounds will remain in the material. Drying material not only removes water; but also alot of the low BP VOC's will naturally evolve off over time; reducing biomass potency. Things like thermal degradation, oxidation, UV degradation, come into play as well but i wont bore yall.

if this is actually applicable in game i have no clue. but IRL fresh biomass typically yields a more potent extract.

I love the alchemy system in this game. ill never actually do it though because its tedious af lmao

[Kona]

Pick up the Dark Arts Apprentice perk and do your alchemy starting at midnight. You can use dried herbs that way and still get the best quality

[king_of_jamaica]

I exclusively use dried herbs and every potion I've brewed since I got the perk has been a "Henry's" quality.

You're doing something else wrong.

[Lawh]

I'm not doing anything wrong, and as it happened I was brewing at night with the perk. Something is off.

I used to make Henry potions at all times and nothing has changed. Now I have not been able to make one in weeks in-game time. The only thing I can think of is that before I might have used half fresh and half dried, but now I used all dried. However, I am pretty sure I have used fresh herbs between making Henry potions and now, and they all come out as strong. It seems like a bug. I brewed a lot of different potions, multiple times, looked at the instructions step by step to make sure nothing was wrong, and Henry says nothing at the end of the brewing process that would indicate that something went wrong.

Is it possible, that the dried herbs quality is 100, but that's not actually the case if the herb quality has been low? It might explain some of it, that I happen to use some dried herbs that were really low grade as I dried them?