Optimal Cellar (Cask) Layout
Cellars are unlocked with the third upgrade for your house -- it costs 100,000g, which is pretty reasonable after having to fork over 150 Hardwood and 50,000g for the second upgrade.
There are two approaches for optimal usage of your cellar space for casks:
- Fill the entire cellar up with a total of 189 Casks, then fill or break them as you need them. This seems a bit tedious and probably not worth all the time and energy for some extra money.
- Use 125 casks and the layout at the top of the page for mostly easy access to casks whenever you need them; I say mostly easy because there are a few corners cannot be reached on mobile or with a controller -- in these cases, 118 casts will do.
What ingredients should I put in Casks?
While you can age Pale Ale, Beer, Mead, and Cheese in Casks, your best bets are Goat Cheese and Wine (specifically Starfruit Wine or Ancient Fruit Wine):
| Ingredient | Total Processing Time | Value Increase | Gold/Day |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starfruit Wine | 56 Days | 2,250g | 40.2 |
| Ancient Fruit Wine | 56 Days | 1,650g | 29.5 |
| Goat Cheese | 14 Days | 400g | 28.6 |
The increase in value drops off considerably after these three ingredients. Since Starfruit requires seeds and does not regrow on a vine, it's more important to age Starfruit Wine than it is to age Ancient Fruit Wine -- but even when you factor in the cost of Starfruit Seeds (400g), Starfruit Wine is still more profitable than Ancient Fruit Wine (but after factoring in crop growth time, it's probably not worth focusing on Starfruit Wine over Ancient Fruit Wine).
Is aging even worth it?
That's a good question and here's the dilemma: Aging is unique (and useful for completing the Movie Theater) but it's probably not worth the space. At the end of the day, the final house upgrade is really just an expensive Shed (as Sheds provide 137 spaces for machines) and this space is probably better used for extra Kegs or other processing machines.
It takes 56 days to completely age wine and that only doubles the value of it. In the same amount of time (assuming you have the resources), you could have made 8x the amount of wine in the same space. If you're tight on resources (either ingredients or kegs), this is the only time when Casks are beneficial compared to more Kegs.
For comparison, here are similar processing time breakdowns for the Keg:
| Ingredient | Total Processing Time | Value Increase | Gold/Day |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starfruit | 7 Days | 1,500g | 214.3 |
| Wheat | 1 Day | 175g | 175 |
| Ancient Fruit | 7 Days | 1,100g | 157.1 |
| Hops | 1-2 Days | 275g | 137.5 |
| Pumpkin | 4 Days | 400g | 100 |
Side Note: Processing Wheat into Beer is one of, if not, the best way to use a Keg and with the quick processing time of one day, one Keg covers up to four tiles of Wheat.
If you factor in the cost of Starfruit Seeds (400g) into the cost of making Wine, it ends up making the exact same amount of gold per day that Ancient Fruit does -- so this is the exact reason why aging Starfruit Wine is important but aging Ancient Fruit Wine is probably a wash.
It's up to you what you want to do with your cellar but it might be best used for roleplaying purposes than eking out more profit.