Henry's Alchemy Potion Recipes

The recipes you buy and learn from NPC will produce a strong potion if followed correctly.
If you adjust for the comments made using those recipes then you get Henry's recipes.

The keys to success

- Fresh herbs. Fresh herbs make a difference in quality of the potion. The difference between fresh and dried can cause some recipes to produce a Strong Potion rather than a Henry Potion.

- Raising the cauldron. Raising the cauldron stops the boiling. Even going over just a bit while pouring or distilling can reduce the quality of the potion.

- Factor in animation times. For some recipes you need to factor in the animation times, like my Savior Schnapps recipe, going a 1 turn goes over on the Belladonna boil limit and reduces then to Strong Potion. The times are factored into my recipes.

- Bellows. Unless the recipe specifically calls for the bellows do not use it. This will cause many recipes to produce lower quality because the heat was too high.

Secret of Equilibrium Versus Secret of Matter

This is a dilemma question.
One on hand extra potions perks allow you to get 6 potion per batch.
On the other hand having just one rank in errors gives only 4 potions, but the allowance of an error seems to allow the Henry Recipes to be made easier.

The difference between a Strong Potion and a Henry Potion is quite considerable.
For example:
Strong Marigold Concoction is 40 health and Henry's Marigold Concoction is 60 health.
Strong Fox is +5 to speech and faster reading for a day, Henry's Fox Potion is +7 Speech with faster reading speed and +50% Speech XP for two days.

Quite a few of the Henry's recipes I was easily able to do with the error allowance from 1 rank of Secret of Equilibrium. After re-doing my perks and removing Secret of Equilibrium I find I am struggling with some of the Henry Recipes.

I am going to try to see if I can get some of the recipes to work with not having Secret of Matter. It is a lot of experimenting to do.

Henry's Aqua Vitalus

1. Fill the cauldron with water
2. Add 2 dandelion
3. Grind 1 marigold and add the marigold to the cauldron
4. Lower the cauldron,
5. Watch for the graphics showing the contents is boiling.
6. Start the sandglass timer
7. Grab a phial and wait over the distill.
8. When the sandglass runs out click the distill option.

Henry's Fox Potion

1. Fill with Oil.
2. Grind St John and Nettles and put in cauldron.
3. Place Belladona in Dish
4. Grind charcoal and place in Dish.
5. Lower the cauldron and boil for two turns.
6. Dump the dish into the cauldron.
7. Boil for one turn and lift cauldron and pour.

This is one of those recipes it looks the same as the one you learn, so the difference is in getting the timing exact with lifting the cauldron.

Henry's Savior Schnapps

1. Pour wine in the cauldron.
2. Put 1 nettles in the cauldron.
3. Grind 2 Belladona and place in the dish.
4. Lower the pot and boil 2 turns.
5. Dump the dish into the cauldron
6. Boil for 1/2 turn.
7. Raise the cauldron and pour.

Experimenting

It is a lot of work experimenting to find some of these as the recipe adjustments can be pretty slight to being way off.

You basically need to make some failures to figure out the minimum and maximum times an ingredient can boil. Which sometimes a slight adjustment of a half turn is the difference (as with the Henry's Savior Schnapps.)

Originally I had done some of these with the perks to allow mistakes. I ended up doing the Lethean Water and changing all the perks to bonus potions to get 6 potions per result.

The main problem finding some of these that when you fail the "Henry Recipe" you still get 6 Strong potions. Only when you go to far experimenting will you recipe 5 Strong Potions or 4 Normal Potions, then Henry will make comments about something being off.

[Bored Peon]

The only issue I have is people trolling my guide looking to cause trouble.
Posts will be deleted and users will be blocked.

[Ozone]

Note that you need only ONE fresh herb to make high quality potions.
So grab some fresh Nettles, and complete the potion with dried herbs; works wonders.

[Atmo]

Don;t use the timer. count in seconds by saying out loud.... "elephant 1, elephant 2, elephant 3..." Each elephant is a second. It takes 5 seconds for the pot to boil. Ten elephants for 1 turn...

[Bored Peon]

It depends on the potion when it comes to boiling. Nettles needs to be boiled and it does not matter how long it boils. While Belladona does not like being boiled longer than 1 turn.

As I said in the guide, I prepare everything before boiling because less chance of being distracted and over boiling.

[MikeDH]

I use Equilibrium I and Secret of Matter II. The level 2 perks don't have a dependency. If i then use dried herbs for all of the components and doing the recipe exactly as in the book i always get 5 Henry Potions. I think the problem is the exact boiling time. It doesn't matter if you should boil a herb 1 turn and then put some grinded herbs in. If you time it right with the boiling and lift the cauldron you can take your time to grind the herb put it in and then boil it again or pour it out.

[Bored Peon]

Yeah I stopped being a pack rat and stopped carrying a bunch of dried herbs and just picked fresh for alchemy.

Belladona is easy to find, it grows up above the old woman's hut.

[heartnetsky]

Oh and you can still use dried herbs to get henry potion but avoid using more than 1 type.
For example like night hawk u need to have belladonna eyebright and chamomile. U can use dried belladonna but the eyebright and chamomile have to be fresh or the other way around. I usually only dry belladonna henbane herb paris or mint coz they're so hard to be found

[heartnetsky]

Actually raising cauldron it depends on the recipe, I've done some experiments ,for example saviour schnapps here's what i do:
1 pour wine
2 put nettles
3 lower cauldron
4 put 2 belladonna into mortar, grind and put in the cauldron immediately after(i feel like these action takes 2 boiling time)
5 take phial and pour out (coz belladona needs boiling and i found out pour out takes same time as 1 boil time)
Did it daytime so no dark arts and I took secret of matters 1&2 perk..
Still got me henry's saviour
However for marigold decoction
1 pour water
2 put nettles
3 lower cauldron
4 immediately take 2 marigold and grind them and put into cauldron
5 immediately raise the cauldron(since the recipe doesn't tell u to boil marigold)
6 pour to phial
It still give me henry marigold even without secrets of equilibrium try experimenting urself

[Bored Peon]

The dilemma was more for people's playstyles.
- Error allowance allows the use of dried herbs, short recipes, and brew any time for 4 potions.
- Quantity of 6 potions requires extra work to get fresh herbs and wait until midnight to cook.

I also did not mention Dark Art because either choice made still allows that perk.

[Mauree]

You could try using the Dark Arts perk instead of the Secret of Equilibrium to allow for mistakes while also letting you take Secret of Matter.