More keg product variety aka Stardew Distillery

Discussion in 'Suggestions' started by Baruch_S, Oct 17, 2016.

  1. Baruch_S

    Baruch_S Big Damn Hero

    I've been thinking about this for a while now, and I think it would be interesting to see the kegs produce more than 4 products. Turning fruits, vegetables, and grains into alcohol to preserve them through the winter is an ancient, time-honored practice, and kegs could let us do so much more. Here are some ideas I had.
    1. Apples turn into cider instead wine. (I've always found it odd to have apples turn into wine when hard cider is already a real thing. Even a new name and icon with the same sell price would be nice.)
    2. Potatoes turn into vodka because why not.
    3. Corn turns into bourbon/whiskey.
    4. Peaches turn into brandy.
    5. Sugar turns into rum.
    6. Add barley as a crop and have it brew a stout beer.
    7. Add rye and make rye whiskey.
    8. If rice gets turned into a crop, we should be able to ferment sake.
    If anyone has other idea, feel free to chime in. I realize kegs are already insanely profitable, but it would be cool to see them get a bigger variety of products that incorporates more of the real world uses of brewing and distillation.
     
    • Antiochus

      Antiochus Void-Bound Voyager

      Making whiskey is actually a two part process.

      You would ferment a grain into a "beer" or a fruit into a wine, once that is done you distill the beer into whiskey, the wine into brandy or something sugar based into "rum".

      You could however have a still item which you could place wine, beer, pale ale (or any other alcoholic beverage added) into to make whiskey or brandy. You could have your potato, sugar, beet, corn or rye beverages which wouldn't be worth much until distilled and turned into vodka, rum, bourbon or rye whiskey, with the possibility of aging them in casks to make them worth more.

      It would be interesting to have it make slamonberry brandy, for example, as it stands salmonberries aren;t worth fermenting, but if you ferment them and then distill the wine it could make them much more valuable. Making it worth picking all those salmonberries in spring.
       
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      • Jayfeather980

        Jayfeather980 Subatomic Cosmonaut

        Lets say Brandy is like mead, No consideration given to the value of the input product. If 1 Brandy is 500g and takes a week to make in a copper still then using Ancient Fruit to make Brandy would be a waste, But Cheaper wines could be used and make a big profit. It would take 2 weeks, but you could make 500g of a salmonberry.

        For Vodka, I it would be neat if you could gain stars by putting it back in the Still and cycling in again.
         
        • Baruch_S

          Baruch_S Big Damn Hero

          The idea of a still is interesting. I'd suggest making the still burn wood or coal, similar to how furnaces work already, so you'd have a bigger resource investment for the final product. It might also take a while (two or even three game weeks?) so that you have to balance the time factor, too. You have to spend more time and more resources to distill liquor, but you eventually get a better, pricier product.

          I particularly like the idea of brandy being a set value item so that cheaper fruits have a better use. Running them through the preserve jar is okay, but I think we all start skipping the salmonberries after a year or two because even in the preserve jar they just don't turn a significant profit.

          But, from a purely gameplay perspective, I'd skip the whole two part process idea. I get that it's truer to life, but you'd just spend a bunch of extra time emptying the beverages from the kegs and then placing them in the stills. It wouldn't be hard, just horribly tedious clicking the kegs then running to the stills and clicking those. I don't think the added realism justifies the tedium, especially when the game is wholly unconcerned with producing all the other artisan products in a realistic manner. Making distillation take longer and/or require fuel would be a better balancer than the extra clicks.
           
          • Antiochus

            Antiochus Void-Bound Voyager

            I like the idea of making them require fuel, but I would say a long wait time would be a bit much when it already takes quite a while to make wine. It could also be a small well sized building made by Robin rather than a craft able item requiring a significant amount of copper to build.

            In keeping with our Salmonberry idea, we've picked the berries, we've put them in the keg for a week and now they have to distill for another week...I think it's still too much work for those salmonberries. But if it was one bottle of brandy a day say we could have fewer stills (say 10), possibly with the option of aging the product in casks.
             
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            • Antiochus

              Antiochus Void-Bound Voyager

              Just had another thought, stills could also be used to make essential oils from flowers. Giving us something to do with flowers.
               
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              • Jayfeather980

                Jayfeather980 Subatomic Cosmonaut

                Given the Pain in the Butt animals are for such a tiny little profit in comparison to brewing, I think having a two step process for a better tier of brewed product is fair. Also considering how profitable brewing is already "More Money, more profit" isn't a huge motivator but rather "more stuff to do" is. Yes, a two step process would make it more complex but also more interesting. At least that's my thought on the matter.

                The "Still as a building" Idea also sounds good, The Still could be a permanent fixture in a new "brewery" type building. What if the sheds could be upgraded to number of different building types? Upgraded sheds would have an annex to host the new machine. In the case of the Brewery it's a Still, in a Store House, the extra space is empty.

                Essential Oils (or Perfume) could be a good idea too, It would make stills more versatile for sure.
                 
                • Baruch_S

                  Baruch_S Big Damn Hero

                  I like the still as a proper building, not just another piece of equipment. The combination of high resource cost (mostly copper) and the space cost would be a good balance. If it was a building like a mill that can only process one item at a time, I'd say having a short processing time (1-3 days) would be fair. If it was a distillery building with a few separate stills inside, then I think 7 days would be reasonable.

                  Essential oils are also a good idea. Flowers are pretty useless and boring apart from feeding bees; distilling oils from them would make them more interesting.
                   
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                  • Surenu

                    Surenu The End of Time

                    I also would like a still as a building, but not a large one - maybe the size of a stable I guess, giving you the freedom of either having it as a little extra or basing parts or even your whole business on it. Should also require coal or some other sort of fuel. I wanna become a booze baron :D
                     
                    • Antiochus

                      Antiochus Void-Bound Voyager

                      I think a week is a long time to wait, maybe that could just be for brandy or higher end spirits. Distilling spirits is a shorter, if more involved, process than brewing. But maybe we could have really short wait times for essential oils, slightly longer for vodka, longer for whiskeys and longest for brandy.

                      I could see crops working like this in the alcohol process.

                      Fruit--->Wine---->Brandy
                      Grain (any)---> (grain) beer---->Whiskey This would mean you could use amaranth or any later addition grain to make beer and then choose to sell it as whiskey or beer.
                      Hops---->pale ale----->Whiskey this would make it so that pale ale would still be worth making on it's own as it would turn into generic whiskey
                      Sugar/Beets ----->Rum Wash----->Rum Rum Wash would be near worthless, so making Rum would be more worth it than selling the Rum Wash
                      Corn------->Corn Mash----->Bourbon Like Rum Wash Corn mash wouldn't have much value until distilled.

                      For vodka I could see any starchy root be used as a base, not just potatoes.

                      So Potatoes, Yams, Winter Roots, Snow Yams, Cave Carrots (possibly) and parsnips------>vodka mash----->vodka Like Rum and Bourbon the second step wouldn't have much value unless distilled.

                      Honey------>Mead----->Honey Spirit

                      Maple syrup----->Acer----->Maple Spirit


                      And while I'm at it, the ability to tap palm trees for palm sap

                      Palm sap---keg-->Toddy----distilled---> Arrack
                       
                        Last edited: Jul 20, 2017
                        Baruch_S and Surenu like this.
                      • Baruch_S

                        Baruch_S Big Damn Hero

                        Well I'm sold. I think the only things we're missing are a few more beer varieties (which would just be a minor name change to your "(grain) beer" idea, but I want to brew proper stouts, by Jove), and the ability to brand our products with customized names.
                         
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                        • Surenu

                          Surenu The End of Time

                          Some sort of multi-grain keg would be cool. I'm sort of an expert on beer (university student in Germany, what did you expect? :D ), so combining wheat and hops to get wheat beer (the stuff you get in Bavaria) for example would be a good idea. Basically, hops is more of a flavoring agent in beer production, with more hops resulting in a more bitter beer, whereas the grain dictates the basic taste, color etc.
                           
                          • Antiochus

                            Antiochus Void-Bound Voyager

                            Yeah, they kind of mixed the whole hops thing up a bit and I went with it above because I guess it's unlikely they'll change it. By that same token though, if we do ever get something like Juniper berries we could make Jenever and Gin.

                            For beers I would keep the Pale ale as is for simplicity sake.

                            Wheat--->Weissbier
                            Amaranth--->Amaranth Beer

                            If added
                            Barley--->Lager (alot of beer types use Barley though)
                            Oats---->Oat Porter
                            Rye ---> Roggenbier


                            I'd also like to get more foraging options which could be used to make alcohol (and in general) winter in particular should be a time where we have to go looking for food.
                            Things that could be added (for alcohol but with other uses too)

                            Spruce Tips (Spruce beer, could be found on existing pine trees)
                            Mulberries (preserves, wine)
                            Burdock Root (can be used in recipes, to make alcohol we can call "hedgerow ale")
                            Cattail Root (recipes, "hedgerow ale")
                            Blackthorn/Sloes (preserves, alcohol)
                            Wild Carrot Roots (recipes, hedgerow ale)
                            Honey Locust Pods (which could be used as feed, preserves, or to make hedgerow ale)
                            Dandelion (already in but flowers can make wine, roots can make hedgerow ale)
                            Serviceberry (preserves, wine, recipes)
                            Elderflower, Elderberry (wine, essential oil)
                            Lingonberry (wine, preserves, recipes)

                            Hedgerow ale could be fairly cheap but have benefits to foraging, and it could be distilled into vodka.


                            I know I'm going a bit overboard with this, kind of just playing around with ideas right now
                             
                              Last edited: Dec 14, 2016
                            • Surenu

                              Surenu The End of Time

                              One the more abstinent side of things, how about soy beans? Produces soy sauce in a keg and tofu in a preserves jar.
                               
                              • Antiochus

                                Antiochus Void-Bound Voyager

                                That's a good point, could also get things like Kefir from Milk, Tea or Kombucha.
                                 
                                • Surenu

                                  Surenu The End of Time

                                  Kefir is a good idea, though I'd suggest we start with yogurt and then put said yogurt in the keg again to produce kefir. Considering tea, I think a tea crop would be enough which could then be cooked to get a cup of tea in the kitchen.
                                   
                                  • Jayfeather980

                                    Jayfeather980 Subatomic Cosmonaut

                                    I was thinking that the same could be done for fruit juices. Also a cup of tea and strawberry milkshake are included in the unused assets along side the all the meat.
                                     
                                    • Surenu

                                      Surenu The End of Time

                                      Yeah, you're right. Winemaking should be a tad more difficult considering how it puts basically most other business opportunities out of, well, business, so I'd gladly go with the juice -> wine route.
                                       
                                      • Antiochus

                                        Antiochus Void-Bound Voyager

                                        Well, if we want there to be a distillation process I think adding a juice step is a bit excessive, maybe if there was some kind of juicer which was separate and took very little time.

                                        I'd also like to be able to ferment seaweed and algae into seaweed wine.

                                        In addition I'd like to see some new crops.
                                        Sugar Cane, which could be refined into sugar (and ideally rum)
                                        Turnips, which could be fermented into wine or root wine. (and ideally vodka)
                                        Cassava, which makes tubers which can be used in food or to ferment, Tapioca when milled
                                        Taro, which can be used as food or fermented

                                        Rename Yams to sweet potatoes and add true yams.


                                        I seem to have a one track mind...
                                         
                                        • Surenu

                                          Surenu The End of Time

                                          Well, cash crops are a thing in the real world, so it's not wrong to expand on this concept in Stardew Valley.
                                           

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