It could be this is intended behavior, but I noticed new items with surprisingly low freshness when crafting in a biochamber slowed down by the circuit network.

I clocked the biochamber to only operate on the first 2 out of every 100 ticks so it would only consume 2% of normal input, however this ...

2/ If an item spoils while in hand, then inserter will hold an item that is known to be a spoil product of a different item. Such items get slightly different treatment when trying to insert into entity where the item does not fit into input inventory. If its attempted to be inserted into assembler ...

I'm playing without bobs mods, and I can't seem to research the advanced steel smelting process, maybe because of missing required techs that aren't there without bobs installed?