Probably Stolen chemistry guide: Purity and Recipes

Learn Probably Stolen chemistry recipes, improve purity, upgrade lab machines, and meet cartel quotas without wasting ingredients.

Chemistry Basics: Extract First, Purify Second

One overheated batch can leave you short on both rent and your cartel quota. This Probably Stolen chemistry guide explains how to turn ingredients into usable products while avoiding the mistakes that ruin purity. Use this Probably Stolen chemistry guide to understand your scanner, follow the early recipes, and build a production routine your store can afford.

Probably Stolen - Cyberpunk Shopkeeper Sim official screenshot

Official screenshot · Source: Steam store

The key is understanding that making a product and making a clean product are separate jobs. Blending and heating produce the ingredient you want; treatment, filtration, and evaporation remove what you do not.

This guide covers the 1.0-era mechanics shown in the supplied gameplay and discussion. Community findings are identified as community reports or player experience, not guaranteed results for every version.

What Each Chemistry Tool Does

The Chemist start provides a manual and laboratory equipment, but several machines have different upgrade requirements.

Tool or machine	Main purpose	Important limitation
Composition spectrometer	Checks mixtures and finished products	You must interpret the individual components, not just the label
Blender	Turns ingredients into plant mush	Low-quality equipment loses some contents
Heating plate	Drives extraction and other reactions	Excess heat can destroy sensitive ingredients
Filter-equipped container	Removes filterable material	Filtering too early can remove unconverted mush
Evaporator	Removes liquids such as water and alcohol overnight	Requires power and enough processing time
Chem finisher	Produces the selected finished item	Can introduce additional contamination

Your scanner is the most useful diagnostic tool. Check the mixture after extraction, after treatment, after filtering, and before finishing.

A container’s generic name is not a reliable indicator of its chemistry. Look at its composition to determine whether it contains useful extract, leftover solvent, or unwanted material.

Dream Dust and Caffeine Pill Recipes

The first practical lesson in this Probably Stolen chemistry guide is to finish extraction before filtering. According to community reports, filters can remove plant mush while allowing the resulting extract to pass through.

That makes the order important: blending, extraction, purification, evaporation, and finishing.

How to Make Dream Dust

The in-game manual shown in the gameplay gives an alcohol-assisted extraction method with a narrow temperature window.

Step	Action	What to verify
1. Blend	Attach a liquid container and blend Dream Caps	Dream Cap mush appears in the mixture
2. Add solvent	Add alcohol equal to 3–6 times the mush volume	Measure the actual mush volume rather than guessing
3. Extract	Heat the mixture within 40–60°C	Scan for conversion from mush into extract
4. Purify	Filter after extraction; treat remaining impurities if needed	Useful extract remains while unwanted components decrease
5. Evaporate	Run the powered evaporator overnight	Water and alcohol have been removed
6. Finish	Select Dream Dust in the chem finisher	Test the finished vial’s purity

For example, 100 mL of mush calls for 300–600 mL of alcohol under the manual’s stated ratio. That is a solvent calculation, not a promise of a particular yield.

Aim around the middle of the permitted temperature range rather than riding its upper boundary. A modest target near 50°C gives you more room to react when using basic heating controls.

Do not stop merely because the mixture reached the correct temperature. Scan it to confirm that extraction actually occurred. Likewise, avoid assuming that keeping it hot indefinitely will improve the result.

In the supplied gameplay, successful batches tested at approximately 46.95%, 56.5%, and 61% purity. These are examples from player experience, not fixed recipe outcomes.

How to Make Caffeine Pills

Coffee beans use a similar production chain, but the beginner recipe shown in the manual calls for a higher extraction temperature.

Recipe detail	Dream Dust	Caffeine pills
Starting ingredient	Dream Caps	Coffee beans
Intermediate stage	Dream Cap mush	Coffee bean mush
Manual’s alcohol guidance	3–6 times mush volume	Optional but recommended, at 3–6 times mush volume
Manual’s heating guidance	40–60°C	At least 80°C
Notable purification concern	Remaining protein and debris	Oil, protein, and debris
Finisher selection	Dream Dust	Caffeine pill

Blend the beans, follow the manual’s extraction method, scan the mixture, then address impurities before evaporation and finishing.

Community reports describe additional caffeine extraction behavior at lower temperatures with alcohol. For a first batch, however, stick with the manual rather than combining several experimental methods.

Do not use caffeine’s heating instructions for Dream Caps. The temperature that works for one product can ruin another.

How to Increase Purity Without Losing Your Product

Purification is where this Probably Stolen chemistry guide moves beyond simply following the recipe. The goal is to retain your desired ingredient while removing everything competing with it in the final mixture.

The community discussion explains that some impurities pass through filters until another chemical converts them into filterable debris. That is why filtering once may not be enough.

Match the Treatment to the Scanner Reading

Scanner finding	Reported in-game approach	Main caution
Unconverted plant mush	Complete extraction before filtering	Early filtration can discard useful material
Protein	Community reports describe acid/base treatment that creates insoluble debris	Excess reagent can remain in the mixture
Oil or fat	Community reports describe Lipobond converting oil into insoluble debris	Add measured amounts and watch the reaction
Insoluble debris	Use an appropriate fabric or water-filter setup	Conversion alone does not remove debris
Physical contaminants	Community reports recommend water filtration	Fabric alone may not address everything
Water or alcohol	Use the evaporator	A large batch may need multiple nights
Introduced contamination	Improve the chem finisher	Clean input can still lose quality during finishing

Community explanations differ on some reagent details, especially Lipobond’s interactions. Treat the scanner and current item descriptions as your deciding evidence rather than assuming one additive fixes every impurity.

Use Small Additions Instead of Whole Bottles

Droppers and graduated cylinders let you make controlled changes. Use them to:

Add a small quantity of the relevant treatment.
Watch which scanner components change.
Stop when the target impurity has been addressed.
Filter newly formed debris.
Scan again before adding anything else.

Community reports describe protein treatment at roughly a 1:1 reagent-to-protein ratio and smaller relative amounts for oil treatment with Lipobond. Those reports are starting points for testing—not instructions to dose against the entire container volume.

For example, a large mixture containing only a small amount of protein does not need a protein-treatment dose equal to the whole batch.

Separate Extraction From Cleanup

A useful rule throughout this Probably Stolen chemistry guide is one change, one scan.

If you heat, add several chemicals, filter, and evaporate without checking intermediate results, you will not know which action helped or caused the problem.

One community example ended with substantial leftover reducing agent and several other unwanted components. The lesson is not that more treatment produces better purity; it is that unused treatment can become another impurity.

There is no universal heating time established by the supplied sources. Watch conversion instead of following an invented timer.

Machine Upgrades, Solvents, and Production Bottlenecks

The blender, heating plate, and chem finisher use Chemical Equipment Modules. The evaporator is the exception described in the manual: it uses normal modules.

This distinction matters when buying upgrades. A general machine module is not automatically compatible with your chemistry equipment.

Which Machine Should You Upgrade First?

Current problem	Upgrade to consider	Why it helps
Clean batches lose purity when packaged	Chem finisher	Reduces introduced impurities
You struggle to maintain extraction temperature	Heating plate	Improves temperature control and heating capabilities
Too much starting material is lost	Blender	Improves extraction yield
Mixtures remain wet for several nights	Evaporator performance	Increases nightly evaporation capacity
You repeatedly run out of solvent	Solvent recovery equipment	Can support solvent reuse where available

There is no single best upgrade order. Diagnose the bottleneck first.

In the supplied player experience, the finisher’s displayed contamination dropped from 12% to 3% after an upgrade. That illustrates why packaging equipment matters, but it does not mean every installation will display those exact values.

Installed Chemical Equipment Modules require a module extractor for removal, so choose their destination carefully.

Where to Get Alcohol and Other Supplies

Chemical Supplies are unpackable boxes, not merely trade goods. Both the gameplay and community discussion show players overlooking this and mistakenly thinking they had no alcohol.

Check those boxes before selling them or spending scarce credits on replacements.

Community reports identify Restricted Chemical Supplies as a source of reducing agent. A player also reports finding restricted supplies inside a purchased medical crate, but that is a possible source rather than a guaranteed drop.

This Probably Stolen chemistry guide does not present a complete Phanta or Nomore recipe because the supplied material does not establish a reliable full procedure. In particular, the Phanta stabilization-agent question remains unanswered in the visible discussion.

Meeting Cartel Quotas and Surviving Inspections

Chemistry becomes a business problem as soon as the handler arrives. A profitable batch is not useful if you sell the portion needed for your quota or lose everything during an inspection.

In the supplied Chemist run, the initial demand was 10 Dream Dust at a minimum of 40% purity. The next demand increased to 15 at 45%. Later dialogue raised the purity requirement again, so always check the current request.

Build a Quota-First Routine

Use this Probably Stolen chemistry guide as a daily checklist:

Confirm the deadline, quantity, and minimum purity.
Reserve enough qualifying stock before making optional sales.
Keep higher-purity surplus for customers when lower-purity stock already meets the quota.
Check evaporator power before ending the day.
Leave time for another evaporation night if the batch is still wet.
Protect rent and operating money before purchasing optional upgrades.

As player experience, the gameplay shows a partial delivery of 13 out of 15 costing cartel reputation while the handler still took the delivered stock. Do not assume partial fulfillment postpones the obligation.

Storage Is Part of Your Production Capacity

The run also demonstrates how inspections can destroy an otherwise recoverable operation. Stock was confiscated, security reputation deteriorated, and the missing products made subsequent quotas harder to meet.

Prioritize appropriate concealed storage before scaling finished contraband production. Ordinary containers and the trash can should not be treated as reliable inspection protection. Do not assume changing a label changes an item’s legal status.

Avoid producing more finished stock than you can protect or sell. Holding material in a machine is not established as a guaranteed hiding method either.

Finally, label products accurately. In the supplied player experience, misrepresented purity brought a returning complaint and a reputation loss. A short-term sale can create a longer-term customer problem.

For additional context, consult the Probably Stolen chemistry discussion on Steam Community. Its purification suggestions are player reports rather than official developer documentation.

FAQ: Probably Stolen Chemistry Guide

Why does the chem finisher say “wet ingredient”?

Water or alcohol remains in the mixture. Check its composition, confirm the evaporator has power, and allow more processing time. One night is not automatically enough, especially after adding a large amount of solvent.

Why is my purity low even after following the recipe?

The basic recipe teaches extraction, not necessarily complete purification. Scan for remaining protein, oil, debris, solvent, or unused reagents. Also inspect the chem finisher’s introduced-contamination value. Better equipment cannot compensate for every impurity left in the input.

How do I upgrade the heating plate and chem finisher?

Install Chemical Equipment Modules in compatible chemistry-machine slots. These modules also improve the blender. The evaporator uses normal modules instead, according to the manual shown in the gameplay. Removing an installed chemical module requires a module extractor.

What is the most important tip in this Probably Stolen chemistry guide?

Scan before moving to the next stage. Confirm extraction before filtering, verify impurity removal after treatment, and check that solvent is gone before finishing. Those checkpoints prevent more wasted batches than guessing from appearance, container names, or elapsed time.