How many kegs do I need and what's the best way to get them?

[feralgal]

I want to make wine with my summer crops but the bottleneck in farming seems to be getting enough kegs to make wine. It's my first year near the end of spring. I haven't planted acorns on my farm so I only have the oak trees there plus the ones in Cindersap Forest. There aren't many in CF. I don't seem to be able to use a tapper on the trees in town. I will plant the few acorns I've found but there aren't many.

How large a crop should I plant for my first summer? I have 100 star fruit seeds but it sounds like maybe I should plant some hops and blueberries as well. I have a few iridium sprinklers from Krobus and have the items to craft more but I'm only level 8 farming ATM so I need to wait on those. I could use quality sprinklers as placeholders and just hand water the spots that get missed.

But once I harvest the fruit, I need to be able to have kegs for most of it. How do I determine how many kegs I'll need and what's the best way to get them?

[Amberia]

For the first summer, hops and wheat are really good with kegs for fast money. Beer and pale ale takes about 1 day to complete, and it highly increases the value of wheat and hop. I'd say don't bother with fruit wine yet if you are in need of money, unless you have ancient fruit growing on your farm.

[feralgal]

Thanks for the reply. I don't need money at all. I have a ton of iridium ore that I can sell if I need the money. I could buy more star fruit seeds if that's the best thing to do. But I don't have any kegs and I'll need them to produce pale ale or wine. It seems like hops are only good if I have kegs and I don't have them.

Star fruit wine is better for money than ancient fruit wine.

[Amberia]

Ursprungligen skrivet av feralgal:

Thanks for the reply. I don't need money at all. I have a ton of iridium ore that I can sell if I need the money. I could buy more star fruit seeds if that's the best thing to do. But I don't have any kegs and I'll need them to produce pale ale or wine. It seems like hops are only good if I have kegs and I don't have them.

Keg recipes will unlock after reach lv7 in farming I believe. You need oak resin for it so put tappers on oak tree asap, they take quite a bunch time to produce. The best thing to put in keg is ancient fruit, if you have greenhouse, you might want to fill it with ancient fruit plants.

[feralgal]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Amberia:

Keg recipes will unlock after reach lv7 in farming I believe. You need oak resin for it so put tappers on oak tree asap, they take quite a bunch time to produce. The best thing to put in keg is ancient fruit, if you have greenhouse, you might want to fill it with ancient fruit plants.

Yes. That's why I'm asking what's the best way to get kegs. I made a mistake and didn't produce the tappers in quantity as soon as I could. I did tap over half the possible trees but not all of them. I've put tappers in all my oak trees now but it still seems like producing kegs is a slow process. So how many do I need?

Star fruit and even hops are the best to put in a keg if you're looking at gold/day gain, although the alternative calculation shows ancient fruit is best. http://stardewvalleywiki.com/Keg_Products Since I only have one ancient fruit, that's not important yet anyway.

[Pixel Peeper]

Fascinating.

The materials required to make Kegs are all very low-level. It's actually highly unusual to have infinite Iridium/money (or even any Iridium at all, really) before you even made a single Keg. But it looks like there's a reason for this; sounds like you cut too many of the oaks on your farm and didn't save the Acorns, and didn't tap any oaks either.

Unfortunately, even though the oaks on your farm will regularly generate Acorns, trees take a long time to grow. You'll have to use what you have until more have grown. Make sure they have space to grow.

In the meantime, there are a couple oaks at the bus stop right next to to your farm. Between those, the ones on your farm and the ones in Cindersap Forest, plus any other oak you might find, you should be able to generate a small bunch of oak resin (and thus kegs) in just a week's time. And of course there's already the Keg that you already have from the Community Center.

You can also find Acorns and even Oak Resin at the Traveling Cart, but it's rare.

[feralgal]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Tripoteur Ventripotent:

Fascinating.

The materials required to make Kegs are all very low-level. It's actually highly unusual to have infinite Iridium/money (or even any Iridium at all, really) before you even made a single Keg. But it looks like there's a reason for this; sounds like you cut too many of the oaks on your farm and didn't save the Acorns, and didn't tap any oaks either.

Unfortunately, even though the oaks on your farm will regularly generate Acorns, trees take a long time to grow. You'll have to use what you have until more have grown. Make sure they have space to grow.

In the meantime, there are a couple oaks at the bus stop right next to to your farm. Between those, the ones on your farm and the ones in Cindersap Forest, plus any other oak you might find, you should be able to generate a small bunch of oak resin (and thus kegs) in just a week's time. And of course there's already the Keg that you already have from the Community Center.

You can also find Acorns and even Oak Resin at the Traveling Cart, but it's rare.

Thanks. I did save all the acorns and even planted most of them (haven't had time for the rest) but the trees aren't mature yet. I said I haven't planted oaks bc I only found a few acorns so it's not that relevant IMO. I got a few acorns from hitting the ground with my pickaxe but most are maple seeds. So I should eventually have a lot of maple syrup. Emphasis on eventually.

Thanks for the bus stop tip. I think I tapped those but I'll double check. I've double checked the areas in town.

I'm not exactly clear on how to make sure they have space to grow. I tried cutting the weeds with the scythe but that seems like it cuts down small plants as well. Is it like a quality sprinkler, i.e., 8 spaces around the seed/sapling? Any tips?

[Pixel Peeper]

Yes, a planted Acorn has a 20% chance every night to grow to the next stage, but this chance is reduced to 0% if there is something else within one tile of the growing tree (so yes, 8 tiles total) or it's winter.

When weeding around saplings, I would recommend removing the weeds surgically, perhaps with an Axe (or maybe even a dagger if you don't want to spend energy). Scythes and swords will destroy saplings.

As for the exact number of Kegs you'll need, well... that's really up to you. Technically you could function with just the one Keg that you've got. I have 22 and sell some of my Ancient Fruit as-is because I don't really care about maximizing the gold income. Someone might want to have 116 so they can process all their Ancient Fruits as soon they become available, and even more to produce other stuff while that's happening.

The game gives you a lot of leeway.

[NotThatHarkness]

Ursprungligen skrivet av feralgal:

So how many do I need?

That depends on what you want to do. I put kegs in a shed, which holds 65 plus a light and a chest, and I put a keg outside so I can see when the kegs inside are done. The stuff I grow goes into a chest and eventually gets put into kegs, or later sold if I determine I have too much produce for my kegs.

If you just want to keg ancient fruit from a greenhouse, then you should have 1 keg for each ancient fruit plant. Ancient fruit plants produce about once a week. Kegs turn fruit into wine in 6(?) days. You can get ... 116 plants in the greenhouse with iridium sprinklers, I think. I think you'd need at least 116 kegs. All this info is on the wiki, by the way.

But if you are going with hops, things are different. It's not hard at all to end up with over 1000 hops in one summer. Turning that into pale ale is quite profitable but it's something you'd do over the other 3 months of the year. I had a shed and a half filled with kegs and just kept at it until all the hops were fermented, when switched over to the 1000+ wheat I had accumulated up to that point. And at least 1000+ coffee beans, as well.

[feralgal]

Ursprungligen skrivet av TreyNutz:

If you just want to keg ancient fruit from a greenhouse, then you should have 1 keg for each ancient fruit plant. Ancient fruit plants produce about once a week. Kegs turn fruit into wine in 6(?) days. You can get ... 116 plants in the greenhouse with iridium sprinklers, I think. I think you'd need at least 116 kegs. All this info is on the wiki, by the way.

But if you are going with hops, things are different. It's not hard at all to end up with over 1000 hops in one summer. Turning that into pale ale is quite profitable but it's something you'd do over the other 3 months of the year. I had a shed and a half filled with kegs and just kept at it until all the hops were fermented, when switched over to the 1000+ wheat I had accumulated up to that point. And at least 1000+ coffee beans, as well.

Thanks. That's helpful, although I'm not sure how many starfruit a plant produces. All I know is that it takes 13 days to mature and I assume that I have to replant it. It's probably only one so either I can go for convenience and have one keg /plant or go for space/efficiency and have ~0.5 kegs/starfruit plant. It's interesting that hops produce so much since the wiki says they take 11 days to produce a fruit.

Ursprungligen skrivet av Tripoteur Ventripotent:

Yes, a planted Acorn has a 20% chance every night to grow to the next stage, but this chance is reduced to 0% if there is something else within one tile of the growing tree (so yes, 8 tiles total) or it's winter.

When weeding around saplings, I would recommend removing the weeds surgically, perhaps with an Axe (or maybe even a dagger if you don't want to spend energy). Scythes and swords will destroy saplings.

Great tip! Thanks. It sounds like I destroyed some of the few oak saplings I had. I have a dagger I found in the Mines but only used it until I got the Obsidian Sword. Now I'll put it in my farm tools/seeds/fertilizer chest. It has an excellent use now.

[Pixel Peeper]

Ursprungligen skrivet av feralgal:

I have a dagger I found in the Mines but only used it until I got the Obsidian Sword. Now I'll put it in my farm tools/seeds/fertilizer chest. It has an excellent use now.

Cool. I never actually tried using it that way because I don't really care about Energy (must be the 1,000 Iridium-quality berries), but I remember its range being really really short and that it doesn't have an arc.

Hopefully the developer remembered that daggers can be used to slash things. It would be sad if the character tried to stab weeds with it, haha.

[NotThatHarkness]

Ursprungligen skrivet av feralgal:

Thanks. That's helpful, although I'm not sure how many starfruit a plant produces. All I know is that it takes 13 days to mature and I assume that I have to replant it. It's probably only one so either I can go for convenience and have one keg /plant or go for space/efficiency and have ~0.5 kegs/starfruit plant. It's interesting that hops produce so much since the wiki says they take 11 days to produce a fruit.

A starfruit plant produces 1 starfruit and then must be replanted. Ancient fruit and hops continue to bear fruit until the plant dies (due to the season change or until you kill it). Hops plants produce hops every day once they are fully mature (as the wiki states). You can shorten the 11 day wait by using deluxe speed-gro. With DSG you should get 20 harvest of hops in summer assuming you plant, water and fertilize on day 1. I planted 60 hops plants in summer year 2 of my last game and used DSG which I bought from Sandy in the desert.

[feralgal]

Ursprungligen skrivet av TreyNutz:

A starfruit plant produces 1 starfruit and then must be replanted. Ancient fruit and hops continue to bear fruit until the plant dies (due to the season change or until you kill it). Hops plants produce hops every day once they are fully mature (as the wiki states). You can shorten the 11 day wait by using deluxe speed-gro. With DSG you should get 20 harvest of hops in summer assuming you plant, water and fertilize on day 1. I planted 60 hops plants in summer year 2 of my last game and used DSG which I bought from Sandy in the desert.

Thanks. I missed that It's once a day after the initial 11 days. I'll probably grow some hops. I'd grow more but I don't like the trellises but the yield means that I should probably plant about the same amount as starfruit. I'll have to check. I'd also like to try blueberries since everyone seems to recommend them. I try to plant at least one plot (8 or 9 currently) of each plant anyway just to have it and have grown it.

Do I need to re-hoe my soil to use DSG? I have fertilizer on most of it. I wasn't sure how it worked at the end of spring/beginning of summer.

[Pixel Peeper]

Ursprungligen skrivet av feralgal:

Do I need to re-hoe my soil to use DSG? I have fertilizer on most of it. I wasn't sure how it worked at the end of spring/beginning of summer.

I believe you can't put fertilizer on top of existing fertilizer, and I don't think you can re-hoe the soil, but a pickaxe lets you turn tilled soil into regular soil, so if all else fails, this should work.

[Nakos]

Tappers can be placed outside of your farm. The area just east of your farm (the "Bus Stop") has two Oaks and two Maples. I usually tap all 4 of those trees.

[NotThatHarkness]

Ursprungligen skrivet av feralgal:

Thanks. I missed that It's once a day after the initial 11 days. I'll probably grow some hops. I'd grow more but I don't like the trellises but the yield means that I should probably plant about the same amount as starfruit. I'll have to check. I'd also like to try blueberries since everyone seems to recommend them. I try to plant at least one plot (8 or 9 currently) of each plant anyway just to have it and have grown it.

Do I need to re-hoe my soil to use DSG? I have fertilizer on most of it. I wasn't sure how it worked at the end of spring/beginning of summer.

Blueberry wine isn't worth much. I put blueberry in preserves jars or just sell it.

Fertilizer seems to only last to the end of the season. I have to put down new fertilizer every season.

For trellis plants I put quality sprinklers in a row and plant around the edges. That makes running along the line of trellis plants a fairly decent way to harvest.