what attachments for a plate chiller

I don't own a plate chiller, so take my response for what it is worth. When I got my March Pump, I purposely fit it with quick connects, and did the same with my hoses, MLT, and kettles. Barbs are cheaper and easier, but putting silicone tubing on and taking it back off every brew session will eat up the tubing which is drastically overpriced at my LHBS. With that said, I would get the model with male and female pipe threading. This way you can get barbs for now (if you are strapped for cash), and upgrade to quick connects in the future, while leaving the water as barbs since you don't have to use silicone on them as they won't touch the wort and don't need to hold high temps.

 

I bought the one with all threaded outlets. In hindsight I would've bought the wort side with barbs and kept the water as threaded. I chill my wort with a hose with a pre chiller

 

I own a plate chiller and would also not suggest using hose barbs for your wort in and out. I recommend (in the opposite order of my own preference) either quick disconnects, blichmann quick connectors, or tri clovers (from least to most expensive depending on your budget).

 

Barbs are not worth it and are a pain in the ass. My therminator is outfitted with camlock disconnects, which makes it much easier to take apart and put together. I use an aquarium pump in a bucket to shoot water through the chiller and it works great, although I also have camlock disconnects on my hose and hose head in case the pump breaks or is being used for something else (e.g. clean in place).

Size wise go big if you're planning on going to a bigger system in the future.

 

I'm no scientist / engineer, but my layman guess would be that....

Bigger chiller = spreading more hot wort over a greater overall chilling surface area at the same time. So it's not so much that a larger unit has less "flow restriction", but more that it allows for a larger volume of wort to be chilled in the same amount of time simply because of it's increased capacity for both hot wort and cool water. That subtlety aside, the end result is the same. Yes the smaller economy chiller will get the job done, but it will take longer.

 

The bigger chillers will allow you to increase the flow rate and maintain the same degree of cooling. More surface area means a larger contact area (more plates or longer chiller) and more efficient heat transfer, but to a point; I can't remember off the top of my head if a longer chiller increases the surface area more than additional plates. Obviously still limited by water temp differential.

 

I've read that typically longer plates > more plates

 

90% of the time. Longer plates allow for greater surface area and convection, which will increase efficiency. It varies alot depending on your variables, but if you were to assuming city water at 5 gpm at 68 degrees, and a desired wort of 75 degrees, an 18" long unit with only 20 plates can chill 10 gallons in 53% of the time as an 8.5" long unit with 40 plates.

The big reason to add more plates is to allow you to increase flow rate of your water. The faster the water, the faster the chill, which is huge for microbreweries doing several barrel batches, so long as they have access to a water main or water holding tanks with a pump. If you are just running on city water, plate length is what you want.