Okay, I did some research, including the sticky, and saving seems like a good way to go. Q. In the sticky the bottom inch from the fermenter is stored in a (pint?) bottle in the fridge. It separates, which part is the yeast? Or does it matter, just dump the whole pint into the new wort?
Then after that ferments, save the bottom inch and repeat.
If the sticky just shows the trub just being stored in a jar this is similar to pouring your next batch of wort onto the top of the yeast cake from one that just finished. Lots of people do it, but you should only do it once or twice.
If you want to take it one step further you can "wash" the trub and pull off just live yeast to use later. You leave the the dead stuff, grain and hop dust behind. There are lots of threads and youtubes on this.
Basically you just dilute the trub with sterile water. I use about 3/4 a gallon that has been pre-boiled and cooled. So you have to plan ahead.
Start by pouring the water into your fermenter after you have transferred your beer to keg or bottles. Stir it around and pour it into a large sanitary container. Let it sit for an hour or so, to let it settle. Make sure you use good cleaning and sanitary techniques. I use a big 96 ounce juice bottle or a couple 2 liter pop bottles. I wash everything real well in hot soapy water beforehand (bottles and funnels) then final rinse it with Starsan.
After waiting for the hour or so you will see that it has stratified into 3 pretty distinct layers. A comparably clear layer at the top, a milky layer in the middle and a layer of thick stuff on the bottom. Carefully pour off the top two layers into another clean vessel (a juice container or pop bottle). Leave the thick settled stuff behind. It is just old dead yeast cells, grain dust and hop dust. The middle, milky layer is live yeast cells, which float and take quite a while to settle.
At this point you could have poured it into a handful of smaller vessels and stopped there. You would have a handful of containers of yeast to use for starters and share with friends. I usually repeat the above steps at least one more time to leave as much trub as possible behind. I shake the liquid around let it sit for a couple hours then pour it into a bunch of 12 ounce or 16 ounce clean, Starsan rinsed pop bottles. Some people use mason jars. These will keep in the fridge for months. The only drawback is that after doing this a few times you will have a lot of yeast bottles taking up a bunch of space in the fridge.
I have heard recommendations that you can use washed refrigerated yeast for 6 months or so. But I have made starters with washed yeast that was over a year old (which may be stretching it). I started slow with a cup of low gravity starter wort (1.025) wort and built it up to a liter or two of 1.040 wort.
From one batch of washed yeast you can have 5 or 6 bottles of yeast to use. If you wait a few weeks, all the good, clean yeast will settle to the bottom of your containers. You will probably have somewhere in the neighborhood of 2-3 teaspoons in each container. You can leave it as is or pour off the top liquid and combine these jars to have more yeast in a single bottle and get back some fridge space. You can even pour off the top liquid and freeze the slurry in centrifuge tubes to keep it for what they say is a couple years (40ml thick slurry, 10ml glycerin, 50ml water for two 50ml centrifuge tubes).
The general consensus is that you can wash yeast 6 or 7 times before you should be replacing it with fresh from the manufacturer yeast. It can mutate or you can have wild things get into it. I have heard of commercial breweries using yeast 10-15 or more times.
Some people carry this a step further and create "slants" to freeze. A slant is made by taking a small amount of yeast and swiping it on a medium of agar (a gelatin like substance) in a tube that is "slanted" at a 45 degree angle. The sample is taken by dipping a small wire into the yeast and swiping it across the agar. It is grown for a couple days into small yeast colonies which are then frozen in the tubes. Again, there are youtubes on this. These can be frozen for years. Given the small size you can create quite a yeast bank in a small space. You can make a bunch of them from the same fresh batch and stretch it out for years. Starters are made by taking a bit (less than 1/100th of a teaspoon) of yeast from one of these slant colonies and building it up from there. If you make a bunch of slants from a freshly bought yeast vial, before pitching it into your first starter, you will always have yeast as fresh as new.
To make a starter from any washed yeast you pour most of the liquid off the top down the drain (decant). You then pitch the yeast slurry from the bottom into your starter. Think about how much you have and compare it to how much you would get in a White Labs or Wyeast container and adjust your starter appropriately (start small/low and build up or start normally). You can go to one of the yeast calculators like Mr Malty or the one in Beersmith for assistance. If you make the starter a few days in advance, you can put it into the fridge for a couple days to cold crash it and to let the yeast settle to the bottom. Then pour off the starter beer and pitch its yeast slurry into your fresh wort.