The general appeal of Stardew Valley comes from its cozy atmosphere and beloved cast of characters. Nevertheless, it's undeniable that a large portion of your gameplay will be focused on racking up as much profit as you can from your crops, foraging, or mine exploration. Whether you're working toward upgrading your tools or saving up for the perfect gift for your favorite villager, you're probably going to need to spend some of your time grinding.

Over the years, players have perfected all the different ways to obtain resources and turn them into the most valuable items. A lot of these methods are quite repetitive, and aren't suited to everyone's playstyle. You may be underestimating how convenient selling dried fruit is when it comes to making a quick profit in Stardew Valley.

How Dried Fruit Works In Stardew Valley

Dehydrators Can Condense Fruit Into More Useful Items

Drying fruit is a quick and easy way to make money in Stardew Valley. By placing five of the same fruit into a dehydrator, you can dry them to obtain an item which is a lot more valuable than its components and grants considerably more health and energy. Putting grapes into a dehydrator will give you raisins - you can also use them to dry mushrooms.

Dried fruit sells for 7.5 times the base price of one fruit plus 25 gold, and grants 3 times the energy/health amount of one fruit upon consumption.

Dehydrators are fairly simple to make. You can purchase the recipe from Piere's shop, and you'll then be able to craft them using thirty pieces of wood, two pieces of clay, and one fire quartz. Some fruits such as the ancient fruit and coconut are usually inedible, but can be eaten after being put through a dehydrator.

Dried Fruit vs. Wine - How Do They Compare?

There's A Good Reason To Use Either, Depending On Your Goals

Selling wine is still more profitable than drying fruit over time if you can get your hands on the right resources. As Reddit CommercialPin2734 pointed out, wine takes a week to create, while it only takes one day to dry fruit. However, you need to use five fruits to obtain the dried item and only one to make wine, so selling and aging wine results in more profit per fruit. Despite this, there are some advantages to drying fruit over making wine, depending on your preferred playstyle or whether you have a surplus of ancient (or other valuable) fruits.

If you want to make a lot of money at once before an event as quickly as possible, then drying some fruit could be one of your best options. Dehydrators are easier to mass produce compared to kegs - you'll usually end up with more fire quartz than you need as you progress deeper into the mines. Also, if you plan to age the wine using casks, these need hardwood to craft, which can be considerably harder to come by - they are also limited in numbers, since casks are only usable in the cellar.

You need to reach farming level 8 to make kegs, but you can unlock the recipe for dehydrators from Piere's for 10,000g before you reach this milestone. Some players might also find dehydrators more convenient because they're generally less tedious to manage, since you need both casks and kegs to make aged wine. To produce kegs in the first place, you need Oak Resin, so using dried fruit as a source of income can be useful if you don't want trees and other items clogging up your farm.

Focusing on dried fruit can be the better choice if you're trying to get to the skull caverns quickly. If you'd prefer to spend time fighting in the mines, then you'll probably find that using your excess clay and fire quartz to churn out dehydrators can become an easy money-maker. Dried fruits also provide more health and energy compared to wine, so if it's not profit you're after, then they're better for carrying with you on the go in Stardew Valley.

Source: CommercialPin2734/Reddit