The industry standard is HPLC (high performance liquid chromatography). Those things go for tens of thousands of dollars up front, plus maintenance and consumables.
If there was a less costly way of doing it, you bet companies would have settled on that by now.
I think it would be just as viable as Monk up in the front lines. As a lvl 4 monk, you’ve probably got 18 Dex and 14ish Wis. That’s AC 16. Dance Bard will have 14ish Dex and 18 Cha, so also AC 16. Same d8 hit die as Monk, too.