Trying to understand my Plated column

[corene1]

I am asking this question out of a need to see what others are getting from their plated columns. I see quite a few folks here trying to get as high of ABV as possible and their methodology getting there. A while back I built a 4 inch plated column just to see if I could and to compare it to my pot still as far as performance goes . It made 191 easily with 4 plates on a first run boiler charge of 10% wash. Now I am no scientist I am a tinkerer and as such am not real familiar with all the reflux ratios and vapor speed measurements I just built it and ran it. Now I am doing rum and am only running a single plate but my takeoff is still at 180 proof on a 10% ABV boiler charge collecting at 1 quart every 20 minuets. It is good rum but I am wanting to collect at around 140 to 150 and bring even more flavor across into the spirit and don't have to water down the spirit as much to drink. So I have been pushing up the heat and lowering the amount of cooling water in the reflux condenser on top of the column. So my question would be how do you folks control your column to keep the ABV lower and increase the flavor of the spirit, particularly with rums and whiskies. Or is my column just one of those things that came together right and like to run high ABV's. It certainly wasn't by science .