The first thing I do is to cool the beer down to 35F and let it sit for a minimum of 24 hours. This helps to settle out any yeast or suspended solids.
Then I clean the keg. Since I have a surplus of beer lately, the decision of when to keg is usually when an existing keg runs dry. Yes, I know it's a good problem to have.
I take the dirty keg and remove the lid and both the gas and beer fittings (along with their poppets). I also remove the dip tubes and take the gaskets off of them. I then boil the lid (with the pressure release valve open), the gas dip tube, the fittings, the gaskets, and the poppets. I add a pinch of baking soda to the boiling pot. I let it boil for 20 minutes to sterilize all these parts.
While the keg parts are boiling, I spray the inside of the keg with about a quart of hot water, swirl it around to free up whatever yeast is sitting at the bottom (usually not much since I settled most of it out as per step 1), and dump. Then I fill the whole keg with hot water, add a half a scoop of oxyclean, and let it sit for about a half an hour. (This is a good time to have a homebrew).
I just read over the last couple paragraphs, and realized (except for the having a homebrew part) that this is a really boring post. So I'm going to quit while I'm behind and post a cool picture of a bike that has two kegs and tappers built into it. Click on the photo for a link to the story from Wired magazine explaining the whole dealio. I'll post the rest of my kegging procedure later.
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