Keg
| Keg | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Type | Crafted Item |
| Recipe | Farming (Level 8) |
The Keg is the brewing machine at the heart of most money-making farms. Fruit goes in and comes out as Wine, vegetables become Juice, and Wheat, Hops, Honey, Coffee Beans, Tea Leaves and Rice each turn into their own drink. Wine is worth three times the fruit that made it, which is why rows of Kegs sit behind nearly every late-game fortune. The recipe comes at Farming level 8, and two Community Center bundles also hand out a free Keg. Paired with Casks, a cellar full of aged Wine becomes one of the richest income streams in the valley.
Recipe
Reaching Farming level 8 teaches the recipe. Each Keg takes a stack of Wood, one Copper Bar, one Iron Bar and one Oak Resin. Smelting ore with Coal in a Furnace gives the bars. The Oak Resin is the slow part. A Tapper placed on an Oak Tree fills with resin roughly once a week, so tapping several oaks early makes building Kegs in bulk much easier later on.
Free Kegs come from a few places. Completing the Artisan Bundle in the Pantry gives one Keg as the reward, and the remixed Brewer's Bundle does the same. The Prize Machine in the Mayor's Manor can also pay out a set of four Kegs.
These are the ingredients one batch needs.
| Name | Image | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Wood | 
|
30 |
| Copper Bar | 
|
1 |
| Iron Bar | 
|
1 |
| Oak Resin | 
|
1 |
Use
Using an ingredient on the Keg loads it. Quality never carries over, so a gold-star fruit makes the same Wine as a plain one. The lowest-quality produce is the best choice for brewing.
Each drink has its own pace. Coffee is ready in a couple of hours from five Coffee Beans, and Green Tea from Tea Leaves takes only a little longer. Mead from Honey and Vinegar from Rice each take about half a day. Beer from Wheat and Pale Ale from Hops need roughly a day or a little more. Juice takes about four days, and Wine takes the longest at close to a week.
The price of Wine and Juice follows the ingredient. Wine sells for three times the base value of its fruit. Juice sells for a little over twice the base value of its vegetable. Beer, Pale Ale, Mead, Coffee and Green Tea each have a fixed price, so cheap Wheat and Hops become far more valuable in the barrel.
Two of the drinks are worth keeping for the farmer. Coffee gives a short speed boost, which helps on a busy morning. Green Tea raises maximum energy for a few minutes and adds a smaller speed boost.
Notes
The Keg and the Preserves Jar compete for the same crops. A jar doubles the base value and adds a flat bonus, while a Keg multiplies it. That makes the Keg the better choice for expensive fruit like Ancient Fruit, Starfruit, Melons and Pineapples. Cheap, plentiful crops such as Corn, Tomatoes or Blueberries usually earn more as Jelly or Pickles. The jar also finishes much sooner, so a farm short on machines often gets more per day from jars.
Ancient Fruit is the classic Keg crop. Its Wine sells for a large sum straight from the barrel. Aged to iridium quality and sold with the Artisan profession, a single bottle fetches several thousand gold.
Casks raise the value further. Wine, Beer, Pale Ale and Mead can all age in a Cask after leaving the Keg, and iridium-quality Wine is worth double. Casks come with the final farmhouse upgrade and fill the cellar. Extra Casks can be crafted later.
Kegs take up a lot of floor space, so most farms gather them in one place. They work inside farm buildings as well as outdoors. They also work almost anywhere off the farm, such as the Quarry, the Bus Stop or Ginger Island. A Keg placed on a villager's walking route gets smashed, so quiet corners are the safe choice.
The Artisan profession at Farming level 10 raises the sale price of every drink from the Keg by two fifths. On a farm built around Wine, that bonus adds up quickly.
All Crafting
Every entry in this group, with its key details.
