I dont disagree with the responses provided but feel they are not considering your end goal of primarily making distillate.
Yes - Hydrocarbons are more versatile but with your intent of primarily making distillate, is versatility really a deciding factor?
I think more appropriate questions to determine how you should proceed are:
- How much distillate do you need to make/sell per month to maintain profitability?
- How much biomass will it take to create what you need?
Yes - Hydrocarbons preserve terpenes much more effectively than Ethanol. But again, with your intent of making distillate, you’re purposely removing those terpenes anyway.
In my opinion, Ethanol sounds like the route you should go but will agree with some of the other responses to look into other units aside from Capna’s. Check this thread out regarding some conversations we had a few months ago about the Capna unit
A quick tell-tale sign - consider how many of Capna’s units have been put up for sale on this site alone
I currently use Delta Separations Cup-15 but have set up a few other Ethanol labs with other units. How you select which unit to go with should be more apparent with answers to the two above questions.