First run of my new VM column

[FL Brewer]

Completed my new VM column and tried it out for the first time yesterday. It didn't exactly drive like I expected..... Column is 48" of 2" copper filled with copper mesh (and a few copper scrubbies at the end). The column is pretty well packed, I stuffed quite a bit of mesh in the column. Take off is 1" pipe into a 1" gate valve then elbowed to Leibig condenser. Reflux condenser is 12" long coil of flexible stainless gas line. Propane power. Column is insulated right up to the takeoff valve.

I had 5 gals of 65% low wines I used for the first run. I was expecting much better heads compression than I got, I collected a little over a gallon of heads/fores, about a gallon and a half of hearts, and didn't even run out the tails. As soon as I tasted the first little hint of tails, I switched over to a new container.... after about half a pint in the new jar I tasted, and wow, the tails bitterness was really strong.... so I turned the gas off then. The hearts measure a temp corrected 90.8%. There is a sweetness that was in the hearts all the way through, even into the tails. It was a birdwatcher's sugar wash (half batch at a time, two stripping runs, one spirit run) that tasted dry before it went into the stripping runs.

So both the lack of heads compression, and the sweet taste in the hearts, the relatively low hearts alcohol %, I think maybe I'm doing something wrong, like maybe running to hard/fast. I looked at the gap in the gate valve after the column cooled down, and I took it apart, it was a very narrow crescent opening, maybe 2-3% of the completely open area. I had to remove and reset my thermometer a couple times, and I noticed that I had liquid alcohol spitting out the thermo port.... does that mean the column is flooded? The port is opposite the take off valve (sticks all the way through the column to right at the gate in the valve). So do I just back off the power? It took me a little over 6 hours to get two and a half to three gallons of heads plus hearts total output before I shut it down. The output stream was just on the edge of breaking up into droplets.

Any thoughts?