In the mod support files, reflection is used to access the various blocks and items that are given grist/alchemy recipes. This should not be needed since they can simply be accessed through using Item.itemRegistry.getObject(identifier). I'll probably wait with this until the mods in question updates to 1.8.

Not only did I delete the classes that used reflection in 1.14 (they were unlikely to work after all that time that they had been around anyhow), alchemy recipes are being moved to json format, so this will not be relevant in the same way anymore.

Another good way of doing it: @ObjectHolders.
There's no point in cleaning up the code for the 1.12 version unless there's something that actually doesn't work. This should be implemented at the 1.14 branch.