How to make money with the Farming Cook professions
by Meeko
or better, the Magic of Blackberry Ale
If you have chosen to be a Yeomen by profession, you will have the Cook/Farmer/Tailor professions at your command. I personally don't do much of anything with the tailoring profession, but I am Grand Master Cook/Farmer and working on my Supreme titles in both of these professions.
To make a couple of gold coins in about 6 hours of work, of which for half the time you must be at the keyboard the other half you can be semi afk... I say semi because you have to check in every so often so you don't auto log due to inactivity.
First you want to reach the Master level or Tier 5 crafting in both Cooking and Farming. Once you have reached this, you can begin to brew Blackberry Ale.
If you have only 2 empty bags, you will have to do a single batch if you have 3 1/2 to 4 empty bags you can do a double batch.
Single Batch - purchase the following:
(takes approx. 3 hours to farm/process/cook/sell)
1 full stack of Blackberry seeds
2 full stack of Umbel Hops
2 full stack of Winter Barely
1 full stack of Earth of Erebor
1 full stack of Purified Water for Farming
3 full stacks of Soil of Lórien
Double Batch - purchase the following:
(takes approx. 6 hours to farm/process/cook/sell)
2 full stacks of Blackberry seeds
4 full stacks of Umbel Hops
4 full stacks of Winter Barely
2 full stacks of Earth of Erebor
2 full stacks of Purified Water for Farming
6 full stacks of Soil of Lórien
Farm the seeds using the master option with the soil of Lórien so you crit each field, trust me, its worth the extra cost in the end. I promise you will make your money back and then some. Now, sell all the poor bushels, again, trust me, you will make more than enough and the time spent to process these back into seeds is not worth the effort.
If your bag space is somewhat limited, first process the Umbel Hops and then cook them up using the ingredient recipe for them (the only recipe for them). This way they take up less space in your inventory. Then you can process the Winter Barley and cook it with the only recipe, also an ingredient. Last process the Blackberries. Now, if you have lots of space, you can do all the processing in one go and just come move the mouse cursor or open and close your inventory to keep from auto logging during all this processing and then do all the cooking last, again just making sure to keep from auto logging while you do something else.
Once you have the processed Umbel Hops, the Winter Barley Mash and the Blackberries all ready to go for the brewing, you will need to purchase enough Ale Yeast for which ever of the three you have the least of. Since you crit'ed each field and since there is no exactness as to how many Blackberries, Hops or Mash you will have at the end, just buy enough Ale Yeast to make what you have on you, to save that one last all important slot in your inventory.
Now, at times when my inventory was really full, I just bought a stack at at time, brewed the Blackberry Ale, sold it then bought another stack of yeast and rinse and repeat. I also keep the sales window open to the NPC right next to the oven in the shire, and once the crafting bar has finished, you can then continually repair your tool as you brew... the same while processing your harvest into Hops, Barley and Blackberries... if you let it go more than three or four levels of repairs needed, you must pay even more for repairs... so I continually repair as soon as the repairs are needed, but this is up to you. I also sell ale as I brew it, if my bags are getting full so I don't stop brewing. I also find this a great way to keep from being auto logged due to inactivity.
During the brewing process, this is also a great time to use skills that do not require anything more than for you to use them for deed counts. I.E. my hobbit is a burglar, so I used my 'Hide in Plain Sight' skill while I brewed the ale and in a few days I was able to complete the deed for using this skill as it has a lock and will only count 20x per day. Whatever class your character is, I am sure there is some skill deed you can be working on as you brew and thus feel a little more productive during the long boring process.
I won't lie to you, it is boring work, but when you finish a single batch you will have earned more than one gold coin... depending on how many times you crit'ed the fields for more resources and also again how many times you crit the ale while brewing and got 4 instead of just 2. If you make a double batch, you will have earned more than 2 gold coins.
If your kinship is in need of coin to purchase a kin house, you can have the money in one day if you get 10 people who are master level cooks and farmers to each make a double batch and donate the gold to the kinship. That will yield 20g coins, more than enough to buy the kin house, all 3 chests, pay the rent for the six weeks and have coin left over for the future rent.
Other Tips:
- I drop 5 fields at a time then harvest them. If you have a low level tool, you may only be able to plant 3-4 fields per round and then harvest so they don't decay and you lose the crops altogether.
- I have set my auto-target key from the delete key to the 'z' key, because its next to the 'u' key which is default key for 'use' whatever you have on target. Then I can just press z then u and begin harvesting.
- I set my character to 'Always Loot All' found in Options>UI Settings>Misc (its the last thing in the Misc list)
- You do not have to wait any amount of time after dropping a field to harvest it, the crit happens when you complete planting the seeds.
- Waiting will not yield more or less in the harvest, its already set when the field action completes so save yourself a lot of time and just harvest them now. I see lots of new farmers standing around after completing the field with fingers crossed, praying more crops will spring up out of thin air and jump on their crops. Its not going to happen, so just harvest them and stop wasting your time.
