Wort from kettle to primary technique

Getting the wort from the kettle to the primary (leaving the trub behind) has been the most trouble I've had in my homebrewing. I've been mainly using leaf hops (about 3oz per 5gallon batch), and I've struggled with every technique I've tried: lost siphons, clogged autosiphons, unsuccessful whirlpooling, trub into the primary, etc. I'm using just a plain 10 gal stockpot w/no false bottom and going to a plastic bucket primary. I've been trying to avoid using a hop bag, as with the price of hops, I want to maximize utilization.

On my 8th batch, I finally got a process that seemed to work okay - this is what I did:

1) set one side of the cooled kettle on a book to put it on an angle
2) took my stirrer and agitated the wort while pushing the trub to the low point on the bottom of the kettle. I let it sit for about 10 minutes to settle.
3) Put my autosiphon at the high point of the bottom kettle and siphoned to the primary. This did lose siphon twice when a few pieces of hop leafs clogged the autosiphon. I took off the cap cleaned out, and restarted. There was about 1/2 gallon of wort left that I couldn't get with the siphon.
4) I then put a 5 gallon paint strainer over my ale pail primary and carefully poured the remaining wort through it. I was amazed at how well the strainer kept the trub sludge out of the primary.

I'm now wondering if on my next batch I should just forget the autosiphon and just pour the wort directly through the paint strainer? Does anyone use that technique or have a better one I should consider?

I just put mine through a sanitized strainer.

Ditto on using a strainer. Also helps aerate the wort. I use one that was for rinsing veggies (it has a fairly tight weave) over the sink with handles that slide out to hang from the sink sides. The spot weld on these failed so I just removed them since the strainer is a little wider than my ale pail giving me a very large surface area. When I use whole hops I sometimes have to stop pouring and scoop out some of the strained material and continue on. This method will also give you a bit of foam but don't strain that off as you will be removing flavor if you do. I get the foam to break down quicker by using the back side of my spoon and gently glide it over the bubbles to break them up.

I use the same over the sink stainless mesh strainer. I tried whirlpooling but it didn't work nearly as well for me as the strainer.

Have a look at the whirlpooling method on the wiki. It lets you simply syphon, you can still drop it through a strainer to help aerate.

Funnel with a screen in it. Usually comes with starter kits. You do have to dump out the trub and hops once in a while.

bradsul- I've never had much luck with the whirlpooling. I read the wiki and did what I thought was spec, but my autosiphon clogged immediately. I then tried putting a hop bag over the end of the autosiphon, but that clogged again almost immediately. If I could get a whirlpool to look like your pic, I'd definitely use that method.

Does it have to with pellet vs leaf hops? I read people using whirlpooling with leafs, but it's been a miserable failure for me.

I've never used leaf hops so I can't say for sure. I've certainly not had any problem with pellet hops. I use a full tablet of irish moss instead of the half tablet recommended by the packaging. I find that it helps the cone stay together much more solidly.

Is there an advantage in using a stainless steel veggie strainer over a nylon 5 gal paint strainer (other than it lasting longer)? Better aeration? If you use a strainer is that the only aeration?

That's the only aeration mine gets. I mostly do stouts where clarity and color isn't a factor.

I use a strainer as well, since i figure it also gets every last bit of flavor out of the hops and grains. I further aerate by doing a lot of stirring while the wort is cooling in an ice bath - this seems to actually help it a long faster (colder wort on the outside is cycled into the middle).

The fastest and easiest thing that I have done is place about half an ounce of hops in the bottom of the strainer (a la hop-back) and poured the cooled wort through it a couple of times between pails. After 3-4 passes the wort is very aerated and you can see the hops holding most of the break material and other trub.