What Does a Flow Control Faucet Do?

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.

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.

Intertap+Flow Control have been largely discontinued. The great news, at least as of this posting, is that Nukatap+Flow Control are generally available…

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 Nukatap Reviews:

At one point these were completely unavailable in the US. As of this update… they’re back! Check product page for current availability.

Perlick 650SS

More Flow Control Faucets

Picnic Tap 2.1 - The Mother of All Taps - no beer line | no foam waste | no drips | no equal

More Flow Control Devices

These devices add flow control to your kegerator without requiring you to change faucets

Related Resources – Foam Control & Kegerator Balancing

Related Review: Hands on Review: NukaTap Flow Control Faucets!

Intertap Faucet Review

intertap faucet review

Nukatap Faucet Review

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Make sure the components you use are compatible and rated for your intended application.  Contact manufacturer with questions about suitability or a specific application.  Always read and follow manufacturer directions. tag:lnksfxd  toppost:whatisflowcontrol rs:7 tag:tpr

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