What Does a Flow Control Faucet Do?
In order to properly serve a pint of beer from your kegerator you need to have a balanced system. You decide what carbonation level you’d like to serve and what temperature you want your beer to be and set a CO2 pressure based on those two factors. To pour a proper pint, well carbonated without excessive foam, you need to balance your system. Balancing offsets your set CO2 pressure with the proper amount of resistance. Not enough resistance = fast pouring and excessively foamy beers. Too much resistance = beer pours too slowly or not at all. Each component along the way provides some resistance. Typically most of the resistance comes in the form of adding more beer line. More line = more resistance. For a full rundown of this see: Step by Step Balancing Your Kegerator Draft System
What do flow control faucets do?
Flow control faucets feature a built in flow compensator that allows you to adjust the resistance your faucet is exerting. That means less tubing and potentially less foaming and wasted beer. The compensation feature also makes it easier to serve higher carbonation beers as you can set the faucet to provide resistance to offset the increased pressure needed to store and serve these beers at higher pressures. Instead of replacing your beer line with ever increasing lengths of tubing, you simply turn a knob to increase resistance.
In my opinion Intertap and Perlick are top faucet manufacturers and both have a flow control model.
NUKATAP Stainless Steel Forward Sealing with Flow Control
These are Kegland’s follow up to their great Intertap lineup. They work with all Intertap accessories and sport a number of improvements. Check out our Hands on Review of Nuka Tap Faucets.
At one point these were completely unavailable in the US. As of this update… they’re back! Check product page for current availability.
- Nukatap Stainless Flow Control Faucet at William’s Brewing
- NukaTap Stainless Steel Beer Faucet (With Flow Control) D1584 at MoreBeer
Perlick 650SS
Intertap Stainless Steel Forward Sealing with Flow Control
Intertap forward sealing faucets have a unique modular, threaded spout design which can fit a variety of different attachments including a growler filler, stout spout and ball lock post. Check out my Hands on Review of these great faucets.
These are mostly (or completely) unavailable. See my post on the subject… Intertap & NukaTap Flow Control Faucet Availability
- via MoreBeer
- via Adventures in Homebrewing
- via Keg Connection
- Intertap Stainless Flow Control Faucet – Amazon
More Flow Control Faucets
- Keg Connection has a number of faucet models beyond Perlick and Intertap that feature flow control. Search “flow control” at Keg Connection
- Search flow control beer faucet at Amazon – offerings vary
More Flow Control Devices
These devices add flow control to your kegerator without requiring you to change faucets
- KegLand Stainless Flow Control Ball Lock Threaded – These take the place of your standard ball lock liquid QD and feature a dial to let you change resistance.
- CMB Inline Flow Control – installs inline on the liquid side of your kegerator
- Flow Control Shank Adapter – installs at the shank to convert faucets to flow control
Related Resources – Foam Control & Kegerator Balancing
- Step by Step Balancing Your Kegerator Draft System
- Kegerator Foam Problems? – Fight the First Foamy Pint!
- Kegerator Beer Line Temperatures & Reducing Foam with a Recirculating Fan
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