Probably Stolen Evaporator: How It Works and When You Need It

Every chemistry product in Probably Stolen follows the same chain: grind in the Blender, extract with heat on the Heating Plate, dry in the Evaporator and finish in the Chem Finisher. The Evaporator is the drying step. It removes the liquids you added to extract the drug, so the Chem Finisher receives a clean concentrate instead of a soup.

Players on the Steam forums describe it moving water, alcohol and Lipobond out of the first container. The target substance stays where it was. That is why the main container looks smaller in the morning even when nothing else seems to have happened.

The machine needs power through the night. If you close the shop without charge for it, the batch will still be wet the next day and you lose a full cycle. Our Chemist guide walks through the complete chain and both Chemistry 101 recipes.

This is the most common Evaporator question. One player loaded a batch, watched the energy cell drain overnight and found the distillate container empty in the morning. Another reported that a jug lost a few hundred units overnight while the condensate jug stayed dry.

According to community replies, this is expected. By default the Evaporator simply removes the liquid. It only catches the vapour in the second container if you install a Quality module. Without one, the water and alcohol are gone rather than collected.

So an empty distillate jar does not mean the machine failed. Check the first container instead. If the solvent level dropped, the Evaporator did its job. These explanations come from players, not from a developer reply, so treat exact numbers as approximate in your build.

The release-build community reference says the Evaporator uses normal modules. Players describe two useful effects. Raising Performance increases how much liquid it removes in one night. Raising Quality increases how much of that liquid ends up stored in the distillate container.

One player reported that on default settings the machine removed roughly 300 ml of water in a night without storing any of it. Treat that as a rough guide, not a fixed value. Large batches may need more than one night, or a Performance upgrade, before every trace of solvent is gone.

Whether you want the distillate depends on your setup. Recovering alcohol saves a little on inputs once you run chemistry every day. Early on, the money is better spent on keeping the rent covered, which our money and rent guide explains.

Not for every recipe. One player making Caffeine Pills learned that the Evaporator was only needed because they had added an optional solvent in an earlier step. If nothing wet remains in the mixture, you can go straight to the Chem Finisher.

Players also point out that caffeine tolerates heat. That means the Heating Plate can boil off water from a caffeine mixture instead. The catch is that the starter Heating Plate only reaches about 99°C, and some drugs are damaged around 100°C. For heat-sensitive products such as Dream Dust, the overnight Evaporator is the safer choice.

For Dream Dust and Caffeine Pills, community advice is simple. Once all the water and alcohol are gone from the main container, move it to the Chem Finisher. You do not need anything from the distillate jar to finish those two products.

One detailed player workflow for higher-purity Caffeine Pills looks like this. Extract the caffeine with heat on the Heating Plate. Remove fats and proteins with acid, base and Lipobond. Filter out solids, for example through Kotton Fabric. Then load the batch into the Evaporator overnight to strip the remaining water, alcohol and Lipobond.

In the morning, select Caffeine Pill on the Chem Finisher and press Output. Check the result with the Composition Spectrometer before you price it. Impurities lower value, so the extra cleaning steps pay off once you sell regularly.

If you just want a quick first batch, skip the advanced cleaning. Blend, heat, evaporate and finish. The Chemist guide lists the exact temperature windows for both starter recipes.

Developer patch notes describe a fix for a bug where the Evaporator sometimes left 1 µl of water behind in a mixed alcohol batch. That tiny residue cost an extra night and made the Chem Finisher refuse the batch.

If you see the Chem Finisher reject a batch that looks dry, check the composition for a trace of water first. On a current build the bug should be fixed. On an older save or build, one more night in the Evaporator clears it.

No. Searching for water players sometimes assume the Evaporator distils clean water for sale. It does not work as a water source in the shop economy. It removes liquid from chemical mixtures, and the distillate is a by-product of chemistry rather than a water product.

For sellable water, use the water workflow instead: obtain water, test it, treat the contamination you find and label the result honestly. The water guide covers that process, and the HydraTech purifier page explains what the portable tool can and cannot reach.

Because it runs overnight, the Evaporator sets the pace of a chemistry business. One machine means one batch per night. A second Evaporator doubles output, but only buy it once the next rent payment is already covered.

Plan your day backwards from closing time. Finish blending and heating before you close, load the Evaporator, check its power and leave it. In the morning, the Chem Finisher is the first stop before you open the counter. If you are still choosing a start, our tier list compares Chemist with the other scenarios.

Why does my Probably Stolen evaporator do nothing? Check the main container, not the distillate jar. Without a Quality module the removed liquid is not collected, so the jar stays empty even when the machine works.

Does the Evaporator need power? Yes. It runs overnight and drains its energy cell, so make sure it is charged before you close.

Do I need the distillate to finish Dream Dust or Caffeine Pills? No. Once the water and alcohol are gone from the main container, move it to the Chem Finisher.

Can I use the Heating Plate instead? For heat-tolerant products like caffeine, yes. The starter plate tops out around 99°C, so heat-sensitive products are safer in the Evaporator.

Is the Evaporator a water purifier? No. It is a chemistry machine and is not a source of drinking water.