Steel cannot be crafted until the concrete tech is researched
This problem is exacerbated even more when playing with other element mods

Hmmm. I am assuming you're playing with bzcarbon2 as well? (If not, I'll need more information on what configuration you're using that gets anything from this mod added to steel at all.)

Presuming the answer to the above is yes... yeah, that's pretty silly. Especially when contrasted with how early the relevant recipes are placed when K2 is in use. I'll plan to adjust that when I next work on this mod.

I am using bzcarbon2 but here's my list of mods (removed any mods that doesn't affect the tech tree). I also changed the mod settings for all element mods to either add intermediates and/or byproducts for extra (pain) fun,

To clarify, I'm just playing vanilla + element mods.
While steel can be researched and appears in the crafting menus, its intermediate quicklime is only unlocked at the concrete tech, so it's functionally uncraftable until then.

(Quoted post instead of editing by mistake)

Newest release unlocks quicklime with steel processing anytime it's supposed to be used in the steel recipe and K2 isn't installed. (Because, as noted, it's already earlier with K2.)

I also adjusted the conditional for adding quicklime instead of replacing salt with it to match the conditions under which salt gets added, which means it's going to be an ingredient under some more configurations. (Specifically, when one is using bzcarbon2 and bzchlorine2, but not bzfoundry2 or K2.)

Thank you!