Hi mikelkisnr. Yeah, someone else with a easy still!! the only thing I can think of is that there was H2O in the carbon which would drop the proof or the average of one of the batches was different than the others. today i am going to distill a corn meal wash I made for a second time which is 118 proof. I will add H2O to knock it down to 100 proof first.

140 sounds good to me. I got two bottles of 130 proof today and put three charred oak sticks into each. a little color is already coming out but will wait three weeks or so before tasting. that is the hardest part.