Winemaking — choosing fruit, fermenting & aging

Choose good fruit and water before spending on expensive yeast. Following a basic recipe can still produce very different bottles. The useful question is which ingredient to change next.

1. Unlock winemaking and make a small batch

Unlock winemaking through the upgrade menu and collect the booklet and starter equipment. Prepare a Wine Bottle, wine fruit, ordinary Wine Yeast and water. Learn one complete fermentation cycle before scaling up.

The booklet shows 750 ml of water, one or two fruits and yeast. If you filter the water, check its actual volume afterward: filtering can leave the bottle short. Top it up before starting. Bottle capacity is not the same as the amount currently inside.

Insert the ingredients, start fermentation and inspect the finished wine. Note which fruit and water you used. Change one ingredient in the next trial so you can identify what improved the result.

2. Inspect fruit instead of paying for its appearance

Use the magnifying glass to inspect size and condition. The video compares large fruit, ordinary small fruit, glowing fruit and shriveled or cobwebbed fruit. Two large fruits give a better result; ordinary small fruit is intermediate; glowing or poor-condition fruit does not make better wine simply because it looks unusual.

Sort your fruit before preparing batches. Do not price ingredients by color or glow alone. Expand purchases once you can repeat a useful result with good fruit.

Mixed sizes can also work. The creator gets a better result with a large/small pairing and High Quality Water. Try one bottle of each combination before committing to the most expensive ingredients in every bottle; compare both the finished value and the cost.

3. Improve water to High Quality before chasing Pure Water

In the video’s comparisons, High Quality Water improves the finished tier over Basewater, while Pure Water adds no further tier improvement. For winemaking, testing the move from Basewater to High Quality Water is more useful than blindly pursuing the highest purity reading.

If you have no suitable supply, use the water-trading and treatment guide to prepare a small batch. The creator also mentions ice-harvester supplies and ration-station water for an eligible starting setup. Treat these as additional sources, not guaranteed daily stock.

4. Choose yeast for its role, not its price

Ordinary and more expensive yeast do not separate the quality tiers in the creator’s corresponding comparison. First establish a workable fruit-and-water combination with ordinary yeast, then decide whether a different yeast is worthwhile.

The yeast described as synthetic in the recording produces low-quality wine marked as contraband. Do not confuse it with a general-purpose upgrade. Inspect the description and the resulting bottle’s tags; names may differ between translations and versions.

The creator also points to the Doctor for a reusable yeast device. Whether it pays off depends on how many batches you intend to make and how much cash you can spare.

5. Age finished wine as a separate step

Put finished wine on an aging rack and check the change in its aging days. Aging comes after fermentation; it does not replace choosing appropriate ingredients.

Focus on Quality when fitting rack modules. The creator compares aging speed after fitting modules; observe a night’s progress before investing further. Do not copy a different machine’s module setup without checking the result.

6. Restock before expanding

• Bottles and ordinary yeast: the tutorial uses a household-goods buying sign to attract offers. Customer supplies are random.
• Fruit: watch food trades and farm-worker visitors, inspecting condition before purchasing.
• Good water: maintain a filtering process or a reserve of tested water instead of waiting until the bottles are empty.

Compare sale proceeds with ingredient costs after a batch, then choose which recipe to expand. Higher quality alone does not prove the highest profit.

Troubleshooting

• Fermentation will not start: check the ingredients and water volume after filtering; refill to the recipe amount.
• Expensive yeast changes nothing: examine fruit and water before spending more on yeast.
• Glowing fruit produces disappointing wine: an unusual appearance is not a quality guarantee; inspect it.
• Pure Water costs more without improving the wine: compare a bottle made with High Quality Water.
• Aging is slow: inspect the rack’s Quality setup and compare its progress after a night.

Related: Water trading · Machine modules

Credits

This walkthrough follows Yijing Jinhua de Baban Suan’s five-minute winemaking tutorial. Its exact build and patch setup are unconfirmed. Use the comparisons to plan small trial batches rather than assuming every version gives identical results.