This post is rated N for Number Crunching. This post contains scenes of on-screen Math and explicit min/maxing and optimization strategies that are not suitable for all audiences. Viewer discretion is advised. So... this topic again. We've covered it before, so why again? Well... there's a couple of reasons why. First, there's been some changes in 1.4 that have caused revisions. Second, because there's some interesting discussion surrounding this that has come up since the last time we covered it, that I feel important enough to highlight and go over so we can all play with it and come to a consensus. Time Flies... until it doesn't New to 1.4 is a 'fix' to how time works for processing. Instead of being able to sleep the day away to speed up processing, every day is now a fixed 1600 minutes. While some are less happy about this, I'm actually not upset. This means I can use concrete numbers for processing times and thus how many processors I will need per given supply of goods in a given time frame. Some numbers to keep in mind: Preserves Jars take 4,000 minutes to process a given fruit or vegetable into their respective jelly or pickle. This is also precisely how long it takes to turn Roe into Aged Roe... with a singular exception. Brewing Kegs are a bit more complicated because different things brew up at different rates. Fruits take 10,000 minutes to brew into Wine. Vegetables take 6,000 minutes to brew into Juice. Hops takes 2,250 minutes to brew into Pale Ale Wheat takes 1,750 minutes to brew into Beer So now that we have a constant time flow, we can now precisely calculate how long it takes in days to process something. For Preserves Jars, other than that one exception (Caviar), everything takes 2.5 days to process For Kegs: Fruit takes 6.25 days, For veggies, it takes 3.75 days, for Hops, it takes just under 1.5 days, and for wheat, it takes JUST over a day (150 minutes longer than a full day cycle). However... Manually processing things in half-days or so is a royal pain in the keister. You don't want to have to suddenly stop whatever you are doing, rush back to the farm, and start processing everything the moment they become available. Especially not if you're doing something like diving the mines or Skull Cave or something. Especially if you have MANY jars and kegs, you will probably want to do all your processing in one batch, generally at the beginning of the day. Which means not being able to take advantage of fractional days. Which means rounding up to the nearest whole day. With that in mind, we have some practical numbers to use for processing times: Preserves jars: 3 days Kegging Fruits: 7 days Kegging Veggies: 4 days Kegging Hops and Wheat: 2 days Reaping the Profits So... what do we get out of processing? Well, let's run through some formulas. Let's also define a few variables while we're at it. We're going to use x as the price of the produce. Jellies and Pickles are worth 2x+50g and take 3 days to produce. So the formula would be (2x+50)/3 for daily income. Juice (veg in keg) = 2.25x and takes 4 days to produce. Thus the formula (2.25x)/4. Wine (fruit in keg) =3x and takes 7 days to produce, so (3x)/7. Hops is a special case and is WAY off the charts. You brew it in a Keg. Artisan perk multiplies by 1.4x, so this can make even marginal crops profitable to process. So from there, we can plug the base cost numbers into these equations to get a cost analysis. Let's start with Blueberries. Being a Fruit, it can either be processed into Jelly or Wine. Base price is 50, so both Jelly and Wine end up costing the same. (2*50+50) is the same as 3*50. However, Preserves Jars only take 3 days to process, while Kegs take a Week. Therefore, it is clearly better to process into Preserves. Especially when you take into consideration how many blueberries are produced per plant. Now let's pick something worth a bit more: Melons. Also being a fruit, it also can be processed into either Jelly or Wine. Base price is 250g, which makes Preserves worth 550g and Wine at 750g. Here it is less clear which one is 'better', because while Wine is definitely worth more per each, it also takes longer to produce. Now, Melons take longer to grow as well, around two weeks. So it's not as cut and dried an example. We need to take some other factors into consideration Which is as good a transition as any into our next topic... But at what cost? As the old saw goes... in previous number crunching exercises such as this, we were so busy focusing on whether or not we could we didn't stop to consider if we should. Specifically, how much does it cost to set up our processing infrastructure, and what is going to be the RoI (Return on Investment... basically 'how long until we pay off the cash we sunk into production')? Does it make sense for us to even bother? Well... that's a much more complex question, but I'm glad you asked! Let's get into this question, because it is one that many, including especially myself, have rather handwaved previously, and I feel that it is sufficiently important to cover. Over an arbitrary period of time, of course, ANY infrastructure is going to pay itself off, simply through the increased profit margins you will realize by utilizing them. This, of course, requires you to actually utilize them, which takes time and effort a player may not wish to invest, and it requires time, which you may not have if you get bored with the map and want to play something else. The previous assumption which I based my old calculations on assumed an arbitrary time period. We won't be doing that this time. Instead, we'll be looking at time in vs time out and RoI numbers more keenly. Of course, RoI is going to be based on what we put into our processing facility, so those numbers will need to be drawn up as well. But it'll still be far simpler than an actual real-world RoI calculation since, unlike any company in existence (with the exception of Tesla Motors), we are able to sell 100% of everything we produce, guaranteed. First off, let's talk about the cost of kegs and jars themselves... Jars require 50 wood, 40 stone, and 8 coal. Not too bad, except the coal part. Kegs require 30 wood, 1 copper bar, 1 iron bar, and 1 Oak Resin So... cost analysis? Complicated. Wood and stone you can obtain throughout your travels, but that's a lot of coal per Preserve Jar. You can buy them from Clint at 150g/ea in the first year or 250g/ea after that, but that can get pricey if you aren't careful and you're wanting to step up your game to industrial levels. Kegs are even more complicated because you can't just buy Oak Resin, and copper and iron ore are absurdly expensive to purchase, but can be found in the mines fairly consistently. On the whole, though, Oak Resin is going to be your limiting factor in producing Kegs. You can go diving in the Mines for Copper and Iron, you can chop down all of Cindersnap Forest for wood if needed, but the ONLY way to get Oak Resin is by tapping Oak Trees. Now, Oak Resin seems to be running in roughly the same time frame as brewing fruit in kegs... 10,000 minutes, or (as we round up) 7 days. So the real question is how many oak trees can you tap, and can you collect and refine that much copper and iron bars in a week? It shouldn't be too difficult normally, but just keep in the back of your mind that the limiting factor in Kegs is more the time frame than the actual material costs. But Preserves Jars? Those can theoretically be purchased, but expect to lay out some big bucks. Assuming Year One prices, you've got 500g in wood, 800g in stone, and 1200g in coal (from Clint). This can be dropped down to another 800g if you use Charcoal Burners, but those require so much micromanagement that I rarely consider them worth it, so we're going to go with Clint's price tag. Assuming you flat-out purchase everything, that's 2500g/ea per preserve jar. But assuming you at least obtain the wood and the stone elsewhere, that's still at least 1200g/ea for the coal. Since you're going to be burning coal to smelt the copper and iron for your kegs, you probably also won't have enough left over to start mass producing kegs. There's also the matter of the footprint... where are they going to go? Now, you could store them off-site. There's plenty of strategies for, say, filling up the oasis tunnel (and apparently Pam is a good enough driver to dodge them all somehow), or the little path north of your farm that leads to Robin's house... no one walks up there anyway so it's a perfect place to stash kegs and jars. There's also the Quarry, once you unlock it. The quarry also makes for a fine place to put an oak tree stand as well, if you want to go through the effort of clearing the place out and laying down the flooring to keep stones from popping back up. There's also Sheds. And new in 1.4... the Big Sheds. Sheds were already pretty neat. It's a relatively small footprint, and has storage for around (depending on which platform you are on and your ability to access corners) let's say an even 60 processing containers, and the Big Shed doubles that to 120ish. This makes the Big Shed the most efficient building (on a farm footprint per number of processing containers) to store your kegs and jars in. But they aren't cheap. A shed will set you back 15,000g and 300 wood. Upgrading it to a Big Shed will set you back *another* 20,000g, 550 wood, and 300 stone. Also remember you can only have one building being built/upgraded at a given time and it takes three days to build/upgrade. Therefore... The question is not 'should you build and use preserves jars and kegs', the question should be 'will I make my investment back soon enough to be worth the trouble'. That's a question only you, the player, can truly answer for yourself. Preserves Jars or Kegs... this is the wrong question to ask When setting up processing, often the first question I hear will be 'kegs or jars'. This is the wrong question to ask. It should be 'what am I processing, and what fits my personal needs better to process that'. And usually, at least in my experience, the answer isn't either kegs or jars, but both and how many of each. Kegs and Jars both increase profits, but the cost analysis are quite different. Jars produce faster, but generally are lower absolute numbers. You use these typically on lower-cost produce to crank them out fast while still seeing an enormous increase to your bottom line. Kegs take longer to produce, but typically (though not always) yield higher profit margins. Let's use some examples, shall we? In my Greenhouse Build, found elsewhere, I had 74 Hops, 30 Ancient Fruit, and 30 Pomegranate Trees. So... how do I process this? Well, the Hops are a no-brainer. Hops produce daily, and takes approximately 2 days to process Hops into Pale Ale in a Keg, so that's what we'll be doing. 74*2=148 kegs needed to keep up with daily production. Ancient Fruit is also pretty much a no-brainer as well. It takes one week for Ancient Fruit to produce fruit, and it also takes one week to brew that fruit into wine. A match made in heaven indeed. So... that's another 30 kegs. But Pomegranate? That's a tougher call. They also produce daily, but it's either 3 days in a Preserves Jar or 7 days in a Keg. And I have 30 pomegranate trees to take care of. So either that's 90 Preserves Jars or 210(!) Kegs. Here's where we need to make some decisions about which one to use. Pomegranate Preserves (assuming Artisan) is 461/ea, while Pomegranate Wine is 588. The base fruit is worth 154g itself (and because they are surrounded by a bunch of stuff, they won't ever produce more than basic fruit). So, for 90 Preserves Jars, my daily profits go from 154*30= 4,620g to 461*30= 13,830. That's... a very substantial improvement. So, at a minimum, I really want to at least turn it into Jelly. For 210 Kegs, my daily profits go up to 588*30 = 17,640g. While this is certainly higher than the 13,830g that Preserves nets me, it's also substantially more expensive to set up. So the question here is... is it *enough* more profitable to be worth it? What will my RoI be on it? Well, for me, it's not really about the money so much as the time. You see, those 210 kegs? Yea, that's gonna require 210 Oak Resin. Now, I typically have a stand of 30 oak trees, so assuming I can produce 30 Kegs a week, that's 7 weeks, or almost two months, of nonstop keg production just to be able to begin production. However, Pomegranate Trees take a full season to grow, which means for three whole weeks, I won't be able to process all of my pomegranates as I'm building up my kegs. While I can, if necessary, purchase supplies from Robin and Clint to make the Jars immediately. It'll cost... but that's a problem I can throw money at, and recoup that money fairly rapidly. So, for this particular instance, I feel, for my personal play style and habits, that Preserves Jars are going to be more efficient for my Pomegranates. I will 'settle' for Pomegranate Jelly to sell, rather than Wine. tl;dr: It's not a matter of only making kegs or jars, it's a matter of what you are growing, what you are planning to grow, and what you feel is the best way to process them. In Conclusion Is it profitable to process your produce? Of course it is. However, is it enough more profitable to justify the extra expense and hassle to do it? That's... a trickier question. And it will depend on what you, the player, want to do. Not everyone cares about making bank... and that's great. If that's the case, then processing probably isn't going to be your... jam (sorry, the pun was inevitable). But even for those of us who enjoy maxing out our profits... sometimes the costs outweigh the additional returns in some use-cases, and we need to reexamine our RoI numbers to see if we're really going to be comfortable with them. Sometimes it is better to 'settle' for preserves jars, because the outlay for kegs would not be paid back for several months, or the oak resin simply won't be available to build that many for several weeks or even months. Sometimes it is worth the additional expense to go ham on kegs and make up your profits faster. I can't tell you which one is definitively better. I can't even tell you which one is definitively better for each individual crop. All I can say is that it is something each farmer needs to determine for themselves. Both Kegs and Jars *can* be an enormous profit multiplier. But they can also be annoying to use frequently. So it's really up to you which one, or how much of both, you want to use. And that's probably going to be based on what sorts of products you enjoy producing. If you are wanting to compete with Starbucks and have fields of coffee dotting the landscape in Spring and Summer... you're probably going to want plenty of Kegs to back them up. If you're wanting fields of blueberries and cranberries... you're probably wanting to lean into Preserves Jars as a way of more efficiently processing them all. The rest... is up to you.
Very good post. Time spent interacting with the processor is the one factor I've seen ignored in many debates over kegs and jars, so it's good you addressed it. It is very tedious to fill an industrial amount of these processors, so I've tended to prefer kegs over jars since they don't have to be filled as often. The exception to that is Pale Ale since you have to cycle the kegs more often than jars, but you make so much money on Pale Ale that the pain soon dissipates. I also agree that it is quite important to match the crop and the processor. I once made the mistake of running out of hops for my kegs and producing cranberry wine instead; it was a lot of effort for not much money, and it took a long time to get it.
Oh, is that what the change was? I just noticed it changed things from being able to cycle through jars one morning, two days later in the evening, and again three mornings later. Lather, rinse repeat. Under the update, I'm finding sometimes sets of jars have not yet finished processing, though I'm following the exact same route, so they should have had exactly the same amount of processing time. I'm guessing the timing of the evening refill must be more critical now? The gist of your post I heartily agree with. The biggest reason to have at least some jars, even into year 2, is fine-tuning the timing of cash flow. Especially because of the massive buying program before the price increases. By later in year 2, preserves jars have pretty much outlived their usefulness. They just require way too much attention, and cash flow is never an issue anymore. FWIW, I was expecting two major "secret" changes in 1.4 -- some form of automation (upgraded jars, kegs, furnaces, etc., that hold input and output stacks) and restrictions on off-farm processing. (Well, three, actually. I thought you would have the opportunity to build a factory on one of the several spots on the map that are conspicuous by either lack of features or inaccessibility. A bridge across the river south of Jodi's to open up that rather large space the map shows, for instance. Or the open space between Pierre's and the CC. Or cutting a roadway off the map east of Gunther or Joja.) But the point is you would soon outgrow your ability to process everything in kegs. You would need to swap back some stuff to jars for the faster processing. Balance a new shed against the loss of farmland. Which would be different for each season. Some crops you would select just to get the higher quality, because you could not process them, and have to sell them as is. Well, until you add a new shed for your machines. Polyculture would be a good strategy, not just something you take an efficiency hit on just to complete an achievement.
Let me double check my math. If I have to buy the coal, it costs 1,200g for a preserves jar. If I put a blueberry in it I will get a jelly worth 150 in three days. That is 100 profit in 3 days. or 33.33 gpd. 36 days to pay off. (one month, one week and one day.) 13 loads/unloads. If I put a melon in it I will get a jelly worth 550 in three days. That is 300 profit in 3 days. or 100gpd, or 12 days to payoff. (1 week and 5 days)5 loads/unloads. Even if I have the ingredients to craft it for free, and don't have to purchase coal or wood or stone for my building upgrades. Each fruit takes 3 days in a preserves jar. So that would be about 37 jellies/pickles per year per jar. (assuming no quality bonuses) 37 melons at 250 each 9,250 harvest sacrificed for 550/3 = 183.33 per day revenue stream for a year. $20,350. Per jar revenue. 11,100 per jar profit. It takes a year to get 1.21 more. The 25% bonus for quality crop eats into the .21 potion in a hurry. Basically I'm using the preserve jar to double my profit on the melon(s) over the year? Which makes sense when you look at the per transaction 550/250 = 2.20 while 550/312 = 1.76. Seems like if I'm dating Mr Pickles. (I mean Harvey), then I 'd love some preserve jars to put veggies in. And if I'm not, I can put the one I earn from the cc next to the bat cave and make jellies out of what-ever the bats bring me? Frankly I'm scared to look at the kegs now. At least with them Hops and pale ale are stupid lucrative so I think I'm probably not going to talk myself out of them too. lol
If you're going to do industrial quantities of artisan goods then you should chose the artisan profession for a 40% value boost. So for instance, a melon jelly would be worth 770g, not 550g. However, your profit doesn't just jump to 520g, for two reasons. First, picking Artisan also means picking Tiller for a 10% boost on raw crop value. So the 250g melon is automatically a 275g melon. Second, Farming 10 will give you a boost to the average raw crop value because of silver and gold crops. So, the average value of a melon picked at Farming 10, weighted for the quality of the crops, is about 324g. Overall, your average profit from a melon becomes about 446g. That's earnings of about 149g per day Compare now the melon wine. We still put in an average crop worth 324g, but now we get a wine worth 1050g with Artisan; the average profit is 726g in 7 days, or about 104g per day. Yes, it's lower per day, but it's not quite as simple as that. The daily earnings are not the be all and end all. If you want to maximise total profit you have to consider whether you are limited by processing capacity, in which case you use jars to process as fast as possible and make jelly, or limited by volume of crops processed, in which case, your unlimited processing capacity should be making the most valuable item, ie the wine in kegs. If you can plant the whole field and still process it, you should be using kegs for the most money
I'm almost certain I'm misunderstanding you, Unexpected Parole. Take melons. Let's assume you have sprinklers in place. Spend 80 for a seed, wait 12 days, harvest it, sell it for 250. Every 3 days you get 78% of your initial investment. Pretty sweet. Nice if I could get that IRL. Tale one melon and put it in a jar. Every 3 days you get 221% of your initial investment. I must not be understanding what you are getting at. If there were a seed you could buy that more than doubled your money every three days, wouldn't you switch your farm over to it?
Aye, I stuggle with the English language. And when trying to talk specific scenarios and specific math questions everyone always goes and throws thier own assumptions into it and voids the question. It's routine. Some days I wonder why I try? But let us try again without assumptions that are not stated here. 1. It is 1st summer. 2. Coop isn't built. 3. Barn isn't built. 4. I'm looking for what to do with my summer crops when they come out of the fields. 5. I am going to plant at least four of every summer crop. Many more than that in hops, blueberries and melons. 6. I am going to start producing kegs as soon as I hit farming 8 so that I can make pale ale because that is a rediculous rate of return and reasonable cash flow. 7. I am trying to do the math to acertain how I feel about using preserve jars at all. 8. I'm trying to establish the math so I can determine which crop goes in the preserve jar. 9. I will have farming level 6 at the end of spring 28 and will be earning more as we go. But I want to assume that tiller is not on the table to keep the math simple. We all know that tiller makes the profit less, but I am comfortable ignoring that for now. 10. I assume a single fruit or vegetable in the summer will preform better in the preserve jars than all of the others. 11. I will stockpile all my hops in a chest and just keep feeding them into kegs until I run out if I ever do. 12. I assume I would stockpile the best summer fruit or vegetable in a chest and keep feeding it to the preserve jars until I run out or I harvest a fall crop that is better. Given all that. Is the previous math correct?:
Honestly, I didn't follow your math. For example, I did not understand what you meant by 1.21 more what? I didn't check the math, but it looked like you meant it gave 121% profit (221% revenue) when processing melon. Yes, it does that. I don't know what a year has to do with it though. A percentage rate is a percentage rate, whether a day, a month, a year, a century, a mile, a kilogram, etc. Looked at it the way you appear to be, one tile as a jar is able to process 37 tiles of melon production each year, which if you grew melon year round, would be a bit over 9 tiles dedicated to melons. So the tile for the jar is over 9 times as effective a moneymaker as a tile farming melon. No. Your gross profit on melons was 250-80=170. Divided by 12 days means a profit of 14g per day. By contrast, the gross profit for the jar was 550-250=300. Divided by 3 days is 100g per day. You multiplied your profit 7-fold. Growing crops is chump change. If you could, you would find some mook to grow crops on his farm, buy his produce and turn every tile of your farm into processing equipment. Which is why Pierre's house is so much nicer than yours.
I didn't check your math but you're right that melon is the best summer crop for preserves jars Summer Year 1. Red Cabbage is better than melons when it becomes available year 2. All of the low yield, high value crops are great in the preserve jars--cauliflower/rhubarb, melons/red cabbage, and pumpkins in the Fall.
Right. Put your highest base value regular crops into the jars, preferably vegetables first just in case you have space in kegs. Practically speaking, though, are you going to be able to stockpile produce that long? At least through year 1, I find I'm scrounging for cash to get the next crop in. Losing money from passing out is simply not a problem. That means all the gold and silvers go (other than cc stuff), as well as most of the regulars, since I don't have enough jars to process more than a few of the regulars.
Fair enough I can understand the confusion. I'll explain the use of the year measuring stick. This preserve jar I build and place is going to process melons from the harvest this year, until the harvest of melons next year. <presumably> During that year the jar will require one every three days; so about 37 melons. Why process melons all year you ask? Because of points 11 and 12 above. If melons perform better than anything else in the jar, then why use the jar for anything else? So essentially I'm trying to simultaneously calculate the opportunity cost "lost" in the process of saving 37 melons for this jar while giving me the "best payout/use of my jar" available. Currently the projected expected best payout is 121% profit. Pumpkins might beat that, then the formula will change to reflect the expected profits after that harvest. (And then I won't save 37 melons, I'll only save enough to get me to pumpkin harvest.) I believe I am showing that a single preserve jar will place 37 melons in a bin and sacrifice 9250g in revenue. To get a total of 20,350 (revenue) back over the year paid in 550g every three day installments. It's almost like 'investing' to me. Once I verify this math is correct. Then I'll do the calculations on pumpkins and corn and the rest of the fall crops to see if instead of melons I want to switch over to a different crop in the fall. Maybe pumpkins are better than melons and the first preserves jar processes melons only until I have pumpkins to put in it. Then the calcs will be based on pumpkins from first fall harvest to first fall harvest the next year. (Or first harvest of what-ever crop is the best). Maybe it is cabbage, I don't know. As for year 1 growing, the melons will happen regardless since farming xp is needed, I need them for the summer crops bundle and I need them for the quality crops bundle. Year two, as Honeywell pointed out , red cabbage might be the item preserved. Pumpkins and the rest of the fall crops are all happening as well. Regardless. Then I have to look at when to buy/craft/acquire another preserves jar. And what will I put in that? <Hint> I'll want it to run as efficiently and optimally as I can make it. I'll know when I see the numbers for other crops. You posted again while I was typing, so I'll edit this in. No, I honestly don't know if I can stockpile the produce. That is why I am establishing the base math so I can determine how much I can or can't do. This play through I'm working on is not a min/max one. But one that will attempt to have a great deal of efficiency and purpose. Planned money in/ money out. (the spread sheets are glorious/ridiculous depending on how you spell the word. Year one summer still needing to build the coop and barn and shed and upgrade them I might have to use the coop and barn to fund getting the preserves jars built, not the other way around. -Since the coop and barn are mandatory for cc while jellies and preserves are not. Obviously a single preserve jar is kinda silly to build a plan around. But the math at a single jar is scale able and once the formula is in, I can edit the variables for what ever produce and quantity I want. And once the formula is in place I can move it to whenever in the year I want to build it. Maybe it is late fall? Also, no. There is no room in the kegs. I have hops for those
Ah, I get you. Personally, I'd have to really scratch my head to hold produce that long. Even buying wheat will more than double your money in 4 days. Not as good as fermenting a melon, no, but between growing wheat and putting whatever also-ran I harvested in the meantime into the jar, I do better than just sitting on it for the higher value later. But that is more of a min-max. Maybe more than you are interested in doing. [EDIT] Incidentally, there's almost 3 full stacks of standing wood at the start. More than enough for coop, barn, jars, maybe even a charcoal kiln, so long as you can afford a few salads and are willing to forego a day in the mines. [/EDIT]
Right. And here is where I always get into trouble. I don't need to argue the merits of the "plan" that isn't even a plan yet since it's not even fleshed out. What I need is, verification the math is correct so I can apply it to the other crops. More than likely I'll decide to not store 37 melons even if they surpass pumpkins. I'll likely need the cash from selling them. But I want to know how many I will need to keep and what I will be replacing them with when I run out. But I'll apologize it was not my intent to hijack the thread and make it about me and my plans. It was honestly an attempt to just find out if the math I was using for the jars was correct. Maybe I'll post a new thread with what in the world I am working on so people can stop attempting to predict it and understand my viewpoint/ perspective better.
No, I think what you are doing is fine. What I'm saying is I don't know that it's EVER more profitable to hold produce more than a week, except for going into winter. And even then, maybe not if you have the greenhouse going. My gut feel is it's not, unless I'm out of plantable space on the farm, or having to water "too much" already. What I'm saying is your math is probably fine. It's just not probably how you want to efficiently utilize the equipment.
Melons and Blueberries are both excellent things to put in Preserves Jars, due to the high rate of return. For Blueberries, it triples your gross output (goes from 50g to 150g), and MORE than triples the net monthly yield as a result of static costs vs increasing returns. For Melons, it's a substantial upgrade. 250g vs 550g for preserves. You're over doubling your gross, and again slightly better percentage on returns due to static costs vs increasing returns. Then in Fall, you have Cranberries and Pumpkins. Cranberries, like Blueberries, just about triple their profits due to the low base value of the berries themselves. It goes from 75g/ea to 150g Pumpkins are also quite profitable, going from a base 320g/ea to 690g. But the thing is... once you have the Preserves Jars built... getting more use out of them is effectively *FREE*. At that point, there's no reason to NOT toss something in a Preserves Jar, unless it is something better suited for the Brewing Keg. So it is to your benefit to maximize the utility of your Jars and Kegs by keeping them going with something as much as possible. So it is more of a matter of 'how much do I feel like processing' sort of question. Personally? I tend to build out 60-90 Jars as soon as I can, like First Summer or Fall at the latest. I also tend to get at a minimum my first set of 30-60 kegs out the door by the end of Summer if at all possible. From there, I focus primarily on making kegs, since they're mostly limited by Oak Resin production and I'll want lots of them since the most profitable crops tend to be fruits.
https://stardewvalleywiki.com/Version_History 1.4 Fruit trees no longer need the surrounding tiles to be empty to increase in quality once fully grown.
