I always put blackberries in preserve jars, when I'm out of blackberries I use blueberries and apricots at a 50g base price they are the same as wine or jelly (Salmon berries are a complete waste of time.)
Winter cask is one of the only good uses: Also Cask's are moustly late game solutions since it comes with the last upgrade. This and the fact that you need to fill your entire cellar (even the walking areas to get the 189 cask's) One quarter of a farm can and should produce enough crops to fill the cellar.
If I'm patient and wait to age my starfruit wine and sell it for 6300 aged vs 3150 then I've doubled my money, period.
For exapmle you have 200 kegs and some crops. And there is space left. You produce wine and some wine you will age. Then there will come the time, when wine is aged. Now you get all the money from full using your kegs and additional your aged wines. Even if you will produce more: There is no need to give up you casks. You will even lost money, when you give up your casks! You have space left where you can build your kegs. As long as you space left you casks are not useless. Only, when you have no more room for kegs you should replace your casks with kegs!
The main problem is the size of the harvest in the late game, with a quarter of my farm i can do more than 189 kegs (more cask's that are possible to get working.) The way i do is make a third per day, so i can actually harvest and put in kegs in one day.
This isn't aimed particularly at you but, it is something I keep seeing come up. Even at just over 1500 crops per harvest (in my largest set up) I have not run out of kegs to age everything. The exceptions are blueberries and cranberries due to the 3x or 2x harvests. (Shouldn't be growing blueberries for wine anyway. Cranberries, a case could be made for.) Remember each barn can hold over 120 (about 135 max if I recall). (Choosing not to use them is a choice, but shouldn't be considered when debating over space issues.) That doesn't even include the options outside the farm. (And due to the severe reduction of crop possibilities in the winter, excess can be processed then.) I'm all for pushing the game's limits but, it is very hard for me to believe that there are so many kegs required that the cellar has to be replaced with wine. (And that 189 kegs or less make the difference.) And even if someone managed to find a set up that this is the case, it is far from the norm. (I would also greatly enjoy seeing how such a farm would operate. Because to me it doesn't economically make sense.)
@Zidane471 Exactly what you say, in this proportions 189 kegs don't make almost any difference, the same goes to the cask's, of course i could go for the aged wine, but 2 aged cellars in one year does nothing to my pocket, the main issue is the need to be in a cellar (could be simply inside a building), and the time it takes to double the value.
As I noted before, if the game allowed more access to wine aging it would completely reverse the need to nerf Ancient Fruit and Starfruit. (Nerf wasn't for selling directly I'm sure.) At that point it would probably be better to cut casks and return the crops to their original value. Remember aged wine is x2 value, far more than the loses from the nerfs. The only reason this isn't outright broken is the limit to quantity available to process. At the end of the day, free money is free money even if it is only 2x value on 378 bottles of Starfruit wine. As a side note for anyone curious, I ran the numbers of the setup I proposed in my last post. For purposes of numbers I assumed all 1584 can be planted and fertilized in a single day each season. (Basically impossible) I also assumed that with or without Junimos they can be harvested and placed into kegs in a single day. (Also impossible) For anyone thinking about splitting up the planting days to make the harvest possible, for at least two seasons if not all three that causes the loss of a harvest. Which only lowers the required kegs needed to process everything. (Starfruit for example would lose one whole harvest for any not planted with deluxe fertilizer on day 1. If the player can only plant say, 900 the other 684 are lost.) 20 barns and 1584 crops can comfortably fit on a regular layout farm. (Each barn holds 120 kegs. At 135 each you only need 18 barns.) With Strawberries in spring, Starfruit in summer and Cranberries in fall it is possible to process 100% of the harvest over a full year. This will net the player 21,092,352g after seed costs and assuming fertilizer is crafted. (It even leaves room to process a maximized greenhouse. (IE, Pomegranate trees, hops and ancient fruit. Though, I didn't include those in the total net gain.) Considering that to achieve just what I outlined requires impossible amounts of time to plant, harvest and process. I have a hard time believing someone has a higher production rate. (In fact, there is room for even more crops and barns than what I described.) As for my personal 1584 plot set up, it is used for selling directly and is built over the first few days of the season. Its purpose is to compensate lack of processing with shear numbers. Rather than another long post, if anyone is curious I detail it here. (Its under Maru.) Long explanation short, you would need to have a very high end, multimillion g, specific set up to run out of keg space. (If sure I could break the farm if I had the time to run all the angles. But, not before reaching insane levels of preparation and micromanaging.)
Thats why i split it in multiple days, i may lose aome crops but i'm able to set up the terrain to the next season letting the soil always be ready for the next crop, i can give some screenshots of the general process when i get home. (I'm in the office right now x.x)
I think for me, my general stance is that casks kind of like beehives. They will make money, but chances are yeah if you go full tilt for profit they're going to probably not hold a candle to a particular method. I imagine in regards to profit where their honey is seasonal value and in winter are completely inactive and you can't stick them in greenhouse...beehives are not going to hold a candle to the tried and true preserves jar/keg standard. But also...that doesn't stop folks from putting beehives and flower patches on their farm because for likely a fair amount of folks they find it enjoyable and fun. Especially in a game where it is impossible to not make profit unless you directly sabatoge yourself. The real oomph of casks is likely the same as honey in that it offers variety and is the only method in which you can get iridium quality cheeses or beers or meads or wines. And by making it so it can only be done in a limited area and that it takes an extended amount of time makes it more difficult to just easily attain and also makes it more difficult to just add it to the usual rotations of things. Is it the most profitable thing ever? Perhaps not, but for some people its more fun and the novelty of having a cellar full of expensive wine they are aging is enjoyable which compensates any loss of profit they may be losing had they just filled their cellar with kegs or preserve jars. I got nothing but respect for the number crunch masters who know how to profit margin deck out their farms so they're making like 5mill+ a year by year 2 end. But it's also a matter of preference and unless CA completely reworks several things to try to make things perfectly balanced...there is always going to be a "this is the method/crop combo in which makes the most profit" mathematically that will render 90% of everything else useless. And it's likely that casks just fall into that in regards to some folks profit margins where as for others it adds to it just based on gamestyle. Which is fair! It may just be like beehives and charcoal kilns and animal husbandry, casks are just not for everyone. But it doesn't necessarily mean they are useless. I say this as someone who is already sitting on like 30mill+ on her main save after buying all the wizard swag so has now gone from trying to make money to just trying to collect 999 of best quality items for my own collection. (omg...so...many...pumpkins and starfruit ) So the cask cellar is both a delight and a frustration because its going to take FOREVER to get 999 iridium starfruit wines, cheeses, meads, beers. But I also realize that it would kind of lose a bit of its charm if I suddenly got the option to put casks anywhere or they would be done instantly.
