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[epaga]

Still slightly newbish here, this is only my 6th fortress and I have about 20 hours of experience and have been through the quickstart tutorial multiple times.

Never had this problem before: when I try to brew, my Still always says "need empty food storage item" which I assume is a barrel or a stone pot. Weirdly, when my carpenter goes to make a barrel, he just stays in the carpentry but never seems to actually create any barrels. When my stone pot guy makes stone pots, they seem to always be taken for food storage so don't stay empty.

I'm next to a river, so my ~120 dwarves aren't dying of thirst, but I'm pretty sure they're not that happy that there is no booze. Is this a bug or am I doing something wrong with stockpiles? I have tried making a stockpile with only "containers" enabled and set it to "give" to the still and "take" from the main storage pile (which basically accepts everything except for refuse/corpses/etc.), this doesn't seem to help.

[AutomataKittay]

Sounds like you need to disable barrels for food stockpile so the dwarves will stop trying to stack food into them. It's pretty common mistake or inattentive confusion since food stockpile have barrels enabled by default.

Your assumation's right that you need barrel or pot to process drink into. You'll want to link plant to brew stockpile to the still, unless you already have, because next error'll be asking about plants to brew.

[grody311]

You'd be shocked at how many rock pots you need for 120 dwarfs.  Just have the rock pot job set on repeat until you see more than 5 or 10 in your main stockpile that aren't being used.

I wouldn't suggest turning off barrels for the main food stockpile, though.  Food that isn't in a pot attracts vermin and flies almost instantly.

Eventually you should get familiar with dfhack's workflow, which will solve these little issues for you.  Can be a real headache to set up, though.  DF has a steep enough learning curve as it is.

[Mushroo]

From your stock(p)iles screen, raise the number of "reserved barrels" so barrels get used for brewing, not stockpiling food. This is the exact purpose this feature exists!

The (j)obs, (m)anager screen is also very helpful. For example, you can queue up: craft 30 rock pots, brew 30 drinks.

If you have 120 dwarves, then this problem did not happen overnight. You need to establish a booze industry in the first year of the fort, no exceptions!

[epaga]

Thanks, guys. Sounds like helpful stuff, I'll try it when I get home.

Any thoughts why my carpenter isn't producing barrels, though? I watch him - he takes wood, goes into the carpentry...and then just stays there...

[grody311]

Thanks, guys. Sounds like helpful stuff, I'll try it when I get home.

Any thoughts why my carpenter isn't producing barrels, though? I watch him - he takes wood, goes into the carpentry...and then just stays there...

Hit 't'.  Hover over the carpenter's shop.  It will show you what's currently inside the shop.

It's very rare that a dwarf will make something, then haul it out of the shop immediately after completing it.  Usually it will stay in the shop and wait for another dwarf to haul it away.

[Juxtap0se]

if possible, use rock pots for food storage- you can then trade food with the elves. Also, early on I have two crop fields going. One that is plump helmets year round and the other is sweet pods in the spring and summer, plump helmets the rest of the year. Sweet pods cannot be eaten raw or cooked (until processed) so they will only be used for brewing.

[epaga]

Re: the carpenter's workshop, when I hit 't' and go over it, it says:

cedar                         (B)
-larch barrel <#18>-          TSK
larch logs                    TSK

And like I said, the carpenter is just "stuck" in there and doesn't seem to be doing anything...

But I hear you about stone pots being better than barrels...so I'll try the other tips now.

[WhimsyWink]

Re: the carpenter's workshop, when I hit 't' and go over it, it says:

cedar                         (B)
-larch barrel <#18>-          TSK
larch logs                    TSK

And like I said, the carpenter is just "stuck" in there and doesn't seem to be doing anything...

But I hear you about stone pots being better than barrels...so I'll try the other tips now.

B indicates the material the building was constructed with ... is TSK for 'task' to indicate a work in progress?

[AutomataKittay]

Re: the carpenter's workshop, when I hit 't' and go over it, it says:

cedar                         (B)
-larch barrel <#18>-          TSK
larch logs                    TSK

And like I said, the carpenter is just "stuck" in there and doesn't seem to be doing anything...

But I hear you about stone pots being better than barrels...so I'll try the other tips now.

B indicates the material the building was constructed with ... is TSK for 'task' to indicate a work in progress?

Yep, the barrel's being hauled out, the hauler's not there yet, the log's being worked on ( or hauled back to stockpile if carpenter left ). It can take a bit for inexperienced carpenter to finish making things, legendary ones does it practically just touching the workshop.

If manager's being used or non-repeating work orders are in the workshop, then you can see it going down, eventually, as the dwarf grinds it out. Well, unless they get distracted by break, food, drink, sleep, and some more breaks.

[epaga]

The "reserved barrels" seems to be exactly what I need. But I still am having issues getting it to work.

I now have a "large granite pot" just sitting in a stockpile. It is empty. The stockpile is set to "give to still". But when I tell the still to "brew a drink", a dwarf picks up some plump helmets, goes to the still, and then the error message comes up "...Needs empty food storage item"

Sooooo frustrating. 

[epaga]

OK I found out a solution...I simply REMOVED(!) all the "give to" settings of all the stockpiles, and it started working - the brewer is now happily brewing away. I can only assume there is a bug in the stockpile "give to" settings... ?? Either that or I completely misunderstand what the "give to" thing is about.

[AutomataKittay]

OK I found out a solution...I simply REMOVED(!) all the "give to" settings of all the stockpiles, and it started working - the brewer is now happily brewing away. I can only assume there is a bug in the stockpile "give to" settings... ?? Either that or I completely misunderstand what the "give to" thing is about.

Seems more like either mis-setting of stockpile's barrel allocation or linking them up wrong. Either way, glad things worked out!

My still pretty much works with one stockpile only for large pot or barrels ( no need to assign barrels using E/R, it's a furniture category ) giving to the still and a stockpile of plants ( usually with pots or barrels to cram in as much as possible, don't assign any if you're too low on them ) giving to it also. Drink and seed stockpile takes from the still, since I like some control, but isn't really necessary.

[kingubu]

I don't think they'll use a barrel out of a food stockpile link to brew.  It has to be a furniture stockpile.  I use two links to the still.  One for plants, and one for pots.  To keep them from using my few precious barrels.

[Keldane]

I don't think they'll use a barrel out of a food stockpile link to brew.  It has to be a furniture stockpile.  I use two links to the still.  One for plants, and one for pots.  To keep them from using my few precious barrels.

Unless I'm mistaken, only barrels with food in them are considered to be stored in a food stockpile without custom settings. This means that empty barrels can't be 'given' by a food stockpile, only a furniture stockpile.

That said, if you know your way around stockpile settings, it's trivial to edit your food stockpile to also accept empty barrels. This isn't the most efficient way of storing them, and it is possible. The few times I've done it, it appeared to make dwarves put loose food items in barrels more often but I have no real evidence that it works that way.