I am relieved to hear you say it was easy to understand. I know there's a lot of text but we wanted to make sure that things were explained as best as possible while still making it a slight challenge to encourage players to experiment and analyze the results. I definitely want to add more to it after the jam is over, Geometrix Interactive had mentioned adding a heating element to the lab portion which is actually an idea we tossed around early in development but I think it would be a good addition (ie: heat the mixture at 120c for 10 seconds ). Really glad to hear you liked it though!
And yes, many of the side effects wouldn't be too fun if they were real haha. By the way, we made it so the side effects are randomized (from a long list) each time playing to encourage multiple playthroughs, since it only takes a few minutes to play. Here's a full list of side effects if you want a laugh:
[!] SPOLIERS https://pastebin.com/rqLhrWP6