A cornerstone of a rancher's life in Stardew Valley is milk. A happy 
Cow can produce high-quality milk every day, and a happy goat can produce goat milk every other day. But while players can get good money by selling large milk bottles every day, they can get even more money by crafting them into iridium-grade 
Cheese.
To create this high-value cheese, players must first get a cheese press. Not every quality cheese is more valuable than every quality of milk, but once players build the cellar, cheese should be the only dairy product that leaves the farm.
How to Get and Use a Cheese Press
There are two ways to get a cheese press in Stardew Valley. The direct way is to reach Farming 6, which unlocks the crafting recipe. The ingredients needed are:
- 45 Wood
- 45 Stone
- 10 Hardwood
- 1 Copper Bar
The other way to get a cheese press is to complete the Animal Bundle in the Pantry of the Community Center. All Pantry bundles appear after completing the first Crafts Room bundle, but completing it is impossible if players sign up with Joja and convert the Community Center into a warehouse.
However players get the press, they can place it anywhere inside or outside on the farm. To use it, set a milk bottle as the active inventory item and interact with the press. After 200 in-game minutes, the milk will turn into cheese. Like with other machines, players must remove the cheese before placing more milk.
Both regular milk and large milk will become regular cheese, while goat milk and large goat milk will become goat cheese. Regular milk becomes a base-quality cheese, while large milk becomes gold-quality cheese. The quality of the milk has no impact on the quality of the cheese.
How to Improve Cheese
Just like wine and beer, a good-quality cheese needs to spend some time in a cool, dark cellar to bring out its flavor. To age their cheese, players must have the cellar upgrade and a free cask. Toss it in, wait a few days, and eventually iridium-grade cheese will be ready to sell. Regular cheese takes two full weeks to mature while gold cheese only needs one week.
Iridium goat cheese is the most expensive dairy product players can sell, but players who don't have a cellar may want to sell their high-quality milk instead. This choice depends on whether players chose the Rancher profession at Farming 5 or the Artisan profession at Farming 10 (note that players can't be both a Rancher and an Artisan at the same time).
|
Milk (Large Milk) |
Base |
Rancher |
|---|---|---|
|
Regular |
125 (190) |
150 (228) |
|
Silver |
156 (237) |
187 (284) |
|
Gold |
187 (285) |
224 (342) |
|
Iridium |
250 (380) |
300 (456) |
|
Goat Milk (Large Goat Milk) |
Base |
Rancher |
|---|---|---|
|
Regular |
225 (345) |
270 (414) |
|
Silver |
281 (431) |
337 (517) |
|
Gold |
337 (517) |
404 (620) |
|
Iridium |
450 (690) |
540 (828) |
|
Cheese |
Base |
Rancher |
Artisan |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Regular |
230 |
276 |
322 |
|
Silver |
287 |
344 |
401 |
|
Gold |
345 |
414 |
483 |
|
Iridium |
460 |
552 |
644 |
|
Goat Cheese |
Base |
Rancher |
Artisan |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Regular |
400 |
480 |
560 |
|
Silver |
500 |
600 |
700 |
|
Gold |
600 |
720 |
840 |
|
Iridium |
800 |
960 |
1120 |
With all these numbers in mind, here's what players should do:
- If a player isn't an Artisan and has no cellar, they should convert milk of every size and origin to cheese except for iridium-quality milk. Iridium-quality Milk, Large Milk, Goat Milk, and Large Goat Milk are all more valuable than the cheese they turn into.
- If a player is an Artisan or has a cellar, they should convert every kind of milk into cheese. While a Rancher can sell Iridium Large Goat Milk for 828g, they can sell Iridium Goat Cheese for 960g.
Stardew Valley is available now on Android, iOS, PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.
Stardew Valley
- Released
- February 26, 2016
