Warning: This is a math heavy article. If you're not super interested in making your Keg/Cask operation more optimal, plant trees in your Greenhouse and on Ginger Island if you find yourself with idle Kegs. Your casks will fall behind but sell your excess Wine.
There's a problem with mass producing Ancient Fruit Wine in Stardew Valley -- one Ancient Seed uses one Keg. It's very easy to make more Kegs than this 1:1 ratio supports, leaving you with idle Kegs.
Pineapple has the same problem, so it's not exactly worth planting Pineapple Seeds unless you need to complete the Island Ingredients Special Order for Caroline. It's best you skip this Special Order after you've completed it once and received the Solar Panel recipe.
Ancient Fruit vs Starfruit
Ideally, you want to age Starfruit in your Casks instead of Ancient Fruit. Aged Starfruit Wine will lead to about a 36% increase in profit over Aged Ancient Fruit Wine.
It's worth talking about Starfruit because of how it interacts/scales with aging in Casks. Aging Wine takes a total of 56 days, so it helps you accumulate extra Starfruit and account for the 13 days growing time (vs 7 day regrow rate of Ancient Fruit)
| Ingredient | Base Price | Wine Price (3x base) | Aged Wine Price (2x Wine) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ancient Fruit | 550g | 1,650g | 3,300g |
| Starfruit | 750g | 2,250g | 4,500g |
The problem with growing Starfruit is that it takes 13 days to grow, so you'll likely have Keg downtime. Here's how to best handle it.
Crop Regrowth Rates and Keg Ratios
The Keg Ratio is the number of Kegs you'll need for each plant that you have (e.g. Ancient Fruit is a 1:1 ratio, so you'll need 1 Keg for every Ancient Fruit plant). The formula we use to calculate the keg ratio is the following (processing time for Wine is 7 days):
Kegs = Processing Time / (Growth Rate / Harvest Amount)
| Ingredient | Base Price | Growth Rate | Keg Ratio |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starfruit | 750g | 13 days | 14:26 |
| Ancient Fruit | 550g | 7 days | 1:1 |
| Pineapple | 300g | 7 days | 1:1 |
| Banana | 150g | 1 days | 7:1 |
| Peach/Pomegranate | 140g | 1 days | 7:1 |
| Mango | 130g | 1 days | 7:1 |
| Cactus Fruit | 75g | 3 days | 14:6 |
| Cranberry* | 75g | 5 days | ? |
| Blueberry* | 50g | 4 days | ? |
(*) Cranberry (2) and Blueberry (3) vines produce multiple fruit so the ratio is different for these crops.
Crystal Fruit is dropped by Dust Sprite and Coconut can be found on Coconut Trees or in the Oasis; these are decent catch-up options for your keg.
| Ingredient | Base Price | Growth Rate | Keg Ratio |
|---|---|---|---|
| Crystal Fruit | 150g | Discoverable | Varies |
| Coconut | 100g | Discoverable | Varies |
Another easy way to handle the downtime issue is to have some Wheat (Beer), Hops (Pale Ale) or Coffee Beans (Coffee) laying around.
| Ingredient | Base Price | Growth Rate | Processing Time | Keg Ratio |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wheat | 200g | 4 days | 1 day | 1:4 |
| Hops | 300g | 1 days | 2 days | 2:1 |
I always round the processing up to the nearest day; if you were to check on your Pale Ale kegs every morning and every night, you'd be able to make a extra Pale Ale but we want to be efficient with our time.