What is the fastest way to level up my alchemy skill?

Do the type of potions I make have any effect on how much experience I gain towards leveling my Alchemy skill? Are there any ways to level my Alchemy skill aside from making potions? How effective are the methods for leveling compared to leveling by making potions?

Solution 1:

I'm fairly sure discovering new effects gives you the biggest boost to your alchemy skill, but throwing together your own potions is gonna be effective, of course.

My strategy has been to go out and collect too many ingredients and then head to an alchemy table and just start throwing stuff together. Generally, I try to put ingredients that I know a lot of effects with ingredients that I know zero or one effects. This way, I have a better chance of matching something.

Eating ingredients will uncover the first effect.

Oh, and you could always train from a specialist and then kill them and recollect your gold. But that's limited to fives times per level.

This wiki is a great source: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Alchemy

Solution 2:

My Potion recipe finder generates all possible 2 and 3 ingredient recipes and lets you filter by effect and purity. You can remove items you don't have and it adjust the possibilities. It also sorts by price so the post expensive ones are first.