How to make drinks

[T-Rex137]

Requires empty food storage item, which i imagine are barrels, but how do i place them in my stockpile? They keep using the barrels for other means

[McFuzz]

Just make lots. So many! Eventually you'll just have some spares.
You can also make rock pots, at the craftsdwarf's

[tokenwhite85]

Rock or green glass pots if you're on a volcano embark are your friend

You can also go into the work orders and set it to automatically make another X pots when the number drops below a certain threshold. Super handy.

[Diarmuhnd]

Keep making barrels until you have a few empty barrels sitting in your main storage pile.
Use the work orders to always auto build more barrels whenever your about to run out.

[Lexyvil]

Yeah, as Frank said, make many empty barrels, until you see empty ones start piling up, then you know there's really nothing they have that can be put in barrels. I tend to always make a work order to try to always have at least 5 empty barrels at all time in my forts.

When you select a stockpile, there's a Barrel button when choosing the stockpile type. That button allows you to select how many Barrels it's allowed to have (for food), how many Bins (for non-food items) and how many wheelbarrows (for stone hauling).

[T-Rex137]

Idk why i cant figure this out even with advice lol

[Triglass]

There are 2 major storage containers, barrels and bins. You need a large quantity of both items because they compress your stockpile considerably and are the only means to store certain items. The easiest material to use is wood because wood is an infinite resource if managed properly.

The other part of your question is that your stockpiles must be setup to contain these items. They have a separate barrel button when viewing a stockpile to set how many of each item you can have stored there.

[deepcut]

I'm a newbie but... I think this happens if you have too many seeds/pitts let over from making drinks, and nowhere to put them. afaik these need bags to be stored in as well as barrels; if you click the Still you may find it's full of seeds.

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by T-Rex137:

Idk why i cant figure this out even with advice lol

For getting barrels where you need them:

You said it yourself - "They keep using them for other <sic>purposes." :)

Here's what you do:

First, look at any stockpile that can use Barrels. Those are likely "Food" stockpiles, that includes "Drinks" too.

In the Stockpile Menu, you'll see a Barrel. Click on it... :)

That lets you set the number of barrels, bins, and wheelbarrows allowed to be used in that stockpile.

Now... i bet you know what to do, next, right? That's right!

Reduce the number of barrels allowed in every stockpile that currently has them to only what is minimally needed, then crank up the number of barrels allowed in your Drinks stockpile. The idea being you don't want any other barrels delivered to those other stockpiles and want your Dorfs to know that your Drinks stockpile can receive more empty barrels.

Then, make Barrels. :)

Once you've got enough to get you through this, reset the other stockpiles to suit your needs. Don't set them at max if you're not able to fill them up at the moment, just keep an eye on that in the early/mid game or until you've got those containers balanced out the way you want them.

[McOrigin]

Do you have a manager assigned? Then you can go to your carpenter, issue a new work order for that specific carpener or a general work order (hotkey 'o').
- Issue a work order "Make wooden barrel".
- click '#' to set to '5' barrels per order.
- click that greenish 'condition'
- add the top preset condition 'Amount of empty barrels available'..
(- add the loest condition 'Amount of logs available' ..

That should have you set up if you have enough logs around.

[Triglass]

Originally posted by deepcut:

I'm a newbie but... I think this happens if you have too many seeds/pitts let over from making drinks, and nowhere to put them. afaik these need bags to be stored in as well as barrels; if you click the Still you may find it's full of seeds.

Correct. I forgot that you need to grow some type of fiber plant or raise an animal so that you can make bags. Bags are another important storage unit that can be stored in barrels for further storage compression.

To sum it up, storage is putting a box inside of another box.

[Xcorps]

A craftsdwarfs shop will make rock pots, which will hold also hold alcohol and fulfill the barrel requests of your still's output stockpile. A carpenters will make barrels but you have to supply it with wood. You can get both pots and barrels from trade if you having a labor shortage. If you have an embark sparse on wood, don't use barrels for booze.

So to make sure that your still(s) and your fort will always have a healthy supply of booze:


1) Furniture stockpile set for barrels and rock pots. Link it to supply to the still Set Max barrels
2) Food supply with the fruit you want to distill. Link it to supply to the still. Make sure your fruit gathering and farming outputs are set up correctly so that the stockpile is receiving food. Link it to supply to the still.

If you don't have a container stockpile llinked to a still and the food stockpile IS linked to the still, the dwarves will spam you with container warnings.

Now you need 2 workshops and 2 check daily workorders:

1) A craftsdwarfs shop, with a work order "Make rock pots x10 if less than 10". Don't use the shop order, use your manager. Verify you have at least 2 dwarves with the labor allowed. Link the shop to the furniture stockpile!
2)A carpenters shop, with a work order "make wooden barrels x10 if less than 10" Don't use the shop order, use the manager. Verify your carpenter(s) have the labor allowed.
Link the shop to the furniture stockpile!

The still should link to your booze stockpile. Your still should have a manager work order for brew 20 if less than 20.

The reason you want to use the manager instead of the shop is so that your first three work order priorities are:
1) Rock pot 10 if less than 10
2) wood barrel 10 if less than 10
3) brew drink 20 less than 20


If you want to multitask with your craftsdwarf and carpenter shop instead of making additional shops, you must create a new stockpile AND link to it or your workshop will clutter. Make sure you don't run out of wood or stone if you are still building up a big booze supply, it will shut your still down.

As long as there is a supply of containers and a supply of fruit and you have the labor set up, you will make booze. You can make all this pretty compact, you don't need gigantic stockpiles locally at the shops, 4x4 for input and output is plenty, all you need to do is keep the shops from getting cluttered. The stockpile in my current 20 dwarf fort has a 3x18 stockpile housing 286 drinks, which is about 3 seasons worth of booze for my current population if I suddenly can't make more or my something happens with my assigned brewers.

[Diarmuhnd]

Originally posted by T-Rex137:

Idk why i cant figure this out even with advice lol

Did you get it done? Theres some very good short guides on the topic now on youTube by a few players.

Good luck

[twinny28]

Making alcohol should not be this complicated? I have not been able to make any. Every dwarf is have alcohol withdrawals.

[db48x]

Honestly I think that making alcohol should be more complicated. It should require us to keep vats of fermenting mash sitting around for days or weeks, then everything should require aging in barrels for months or years before the dwarves will really enjoy drinking it.

Originally posted by twinny28:

Making alcohol should not be this complicated? I have not been able to make any. Every dwarf is have alcohol withdrawals.

If you’ll ask more specific questions, you might get answers to them. What seems to be stopping you from making alcohol?

[twinny28]

Well combination of make beer or ale being denied ie red coloured and the only option is process plants. I am surrounded with plants and it says work suspended due to no plants being around for processing. What are the plants needed to make alcohol?