The tip I can offer from a micro scale refinement point of view is to reduce the size of your boiling flask to the bare minimum needed for production. These huge boiling pots being seen now along with the nature of the crude as it is being a mix of high and low boiling points mean by my standards an enormous amount of time the compound is being held at high temp really just being held in storage at boiling temps waiting for a chance to stop refluxing and get collected - often starting before sunrise and being held that way until sunset.
By itself this appears to be manageable except that into that mix is tossed Volitile Organic Compounds known as terpenes. At least one of those compounds, pinene, is known for instance as an oxidative compound and can be used to induce oxidative stress, especially as temperatures rise. This is useful on its own for some problems but certainly becomes a counter productive reaction during a boil. This might not impact a boil that takes place and is done in say two hours VS a boil that takes sixteen hours. Winterization will not remove these products that create reactive oxygen species from the mix at all prior to boil. There is a simple method to remove this stuff prior to boil but I speak on a micro scale. I also, being a clandestine and largly untrainable sort of criminal type do not have my hands tied in my home nefarious research by laws forbidding certain solvents which gives me enormous flexibility over nearly any commercial bigger operation. By this I mean that I am free to use Hexane or any other solvent legal to use and am not bound by protocols directed by paperwork legality rather than what works best.
The tip is confirmed by my own small scale clandestine lab efforts - the longer the crude remains in the boiling pot and boiling away amidst terpenes while being stored for future collection and such the more likely the crude will degrade and change while still in the pot essentially being used just as a storage vessel. If we dealt only with distilling water then it would not matter but we deal with something that breaks down easily. The question would be why use a 10 liter pot if a five liter pot ran twice will do IF what I say is accurate.
“Watts” is a measure of work energy but is one that generally takes time into account. Watt hours then would be how much energy (in watts) per hour is used. Run the math on your boil. Multiply the temperarute by the time the crude is held at temp and that can give you an idea of the total energy input the crude had to withstand during process while being held in storage and of course would apply only to that which remained longest but the byproducts of breakdown will also transfer because as you know distillation is never a completely efficient way to seperate and there will always be at least some of the boiling pot stuff that transfers along with the good stuff. For this discussion I am not even factoring in the heat transfer losses involved with every single gram of glass in the system that also conducts heat at less than 100% efficiency and by itself represents a huge hurdle so to speak for the crude to cross.
A 5 liter pot held at 190C for five hours would compute to a just made up term of 950 thermal units to process. A 15 liter pot held at 190C for fourteen hours would be is 2850 thermal units input into the crude to produce the same hoped for outcome. The question then often framed as discussions about “mystery peaks” and so forth becomes what does that few extra thousand thermal units do to this compound that is legendary for being prone to thermal breakdown? Toss in a bunch of reactive oxygen species and a mix of other unknowns and suddenly all that extra energy starts to impact quality and recovery in a negative way.
Finally, if you truly want success in business, NEVER EVER put your trust in anybody whose high school nickname was “Beaker” and who claims to know what the hell is going on! I hate to show disrespect for a high school graduate who graduated with a D- average and still believes that Pluto is a planet (it is damnit!!!) but I have not yet vaped today and am still Dr. Heckler. Once vaped, I becomes The Beaker just like Hulk but small, puny, old, and pasty. Watch that guy. He operates a clandestine lab somewhere deep in the shadows of darkest Oregon plotting and scheming… at least until I gotta go potty. Then I mostly just focus on the task at hand and bone up on my technical knowledge with Readers Digest and The Enquirer. Some of the words are big but I manage… 