I think I failed

I had my first bad beer experience last night, but I am hoping I may have salvaged it. What do you think?

I was going to bottle my blue moon clone from AHS. This one fermented with white labs Belgian liquid yeast and i was hoping to harvest and wash the yeast (first time trying).

I ran into 2 problems, the first problem was that the corriander and orange peel kept clogging up my racking, so i had trouble racking. I realize now that I could have put a sanitized grain bag over the tip, but hind sight...

Second problem, it appears that this yeast did not cake as hard as others that I have used. So in the process of fighting with the clogging racking cane as I got near the bottom of the carboy, the cake pretty well dissolved into the last 1/2 gallon or so of beer.

At this point I was very frustrated so I stopped and poured everything that was left though a sanitized strainer into sanititzed 1/2 gallon growler. I put in a bung and airlock and left it sitting over night and botled the rest of the beer.

My plan is to let the growler sit for a few days to settle back out, siphon off the beer which will hopefully be easier to do from a narrower bottle and no seeds and then maybe, if you guys think it will be viable, try to salvage the yeast cake from the growler.

As of this morning it was already separating nicely, do you think I might be able to salvage enough yeast to do another batch one day?

Sure, you'll just need to step it up. Not sure I'd bother washing at this point, just be careful not to pour out the last ounce when you drink it (and keep a constant pour) and keep it in the fridge. I've brewed off of beer harvested from smaller bottles than that.

RDWHAHB

I don't see why not. The packets and vials of yeast have much less than it sounds like you will get. Put it in the fridge to drop the yeast as well. It will expedite the process.

IMHO, it sounds like everything was sanitized and there was certainly enough yeast left in the fermenter. So yeah, you should have enough slurry if you plan to brew soon and more than enough to make a starter if you wash/store it.

Thanks. I am planning on washing/storing until i get ready to do another belgian.

Is it normal for that strain not to cake well? (is flocculation the right word for that?)

wlp400 typically doesn't flocculate too well so the trub cake was probably a bit mushy anyway.