Keeping it simple...

[Mental Mouse]

Yeah, I've lately been sticking with the difficulty-5 recipes, but that's as low as they go, and I've only got level 1 alchemy! I've also been playing with my level-6 smithery at the forge, and the result were mixed but encouraging. But that's also what pushed me into alchemy ... specifically, the need for philosophical oil, water of the wise, etc.

[Mental Mouse]

I may have double-clicked on "." (activating my ready alchemy), which occasionally would have cooked a slag from a failed try. Hmm, I'll watch out for that.

[Faebren]

Sticking to making things like water of the wise is a good idea for the beginning portion. It can also help to find ways to streamline the process of making things by binding a string of commands to a single key so that the process of putting in the items, converting them, and then taking them all out take less time.

As a side note, could you make sure that you click the "Post Reply" button when you are posting a reply to a topic and not the "new thread" button? Otherwise the forums get very cluttery and have tons of small threads that have absolutely no context.