Bottle conditioning vs secondary

I've been doing some thinking lately...
All my fermenters are full right now (I don't rack to secondary but instead just leave my brew in primary for about 3 weeks) but I'm eager to start a new batch. My question is if I bottled my beer in say... 2 weeks (of course taking a hydro reading to make sure fermentation is complete) and then leave it in the bottle for an extra week or two, is that essentially going to give me the same results as leaving it in the fermenter for another week? I don't see why there would be a difference, wouldn't the beer clear just as well in a bottle as in a secondary, or longer primary?

Yes, I would think that once the beer is finished, has been at FG for at least a couple of days, and is relatively clear that there wouldn't be any advantage to aging it in a fermenter vs a bottle or keg. Nothing "magical" is going to happen to condition the beer in the fermenter that wouldn't happen after packaging.

I wouldn't bottle a cloudy beer, as that would mean that more stuff would settle out in the bottle and I dislike tons of sediment in my bottle, but if the beer was clearing and finished, I don't see a disadvantage.

I normally package my beers at about day 10-14 routinely.

I've recently started doing shorter primaries and going straight to the bottle. I'm even aging an Imperial Stout in the bottle instead of the secondary. So far I'm liking the results..

I've heard that if you bottle early, instead of bulk conditioning, each bottle could condition differently since each one is an environment unto itself. Any truth in that?

Stauffbier said:

I've recently started doing shorter primaries and going straight to the bottle. I'm even aging an Imperial Stout in the bottle instead of the secondary. So far I'm liking the results..

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Yep, I started doing the same thing a while ago as well. Get that beer in the bottle where it is safe (no light or airlocks that dry up).

zgo said:

I've heard that if you bottle early, instead of bulk conditioning, each bottle could condition differently since each one is an environment unto itself. Any truth in that?

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Some truth. In the short term you may notice a few bottles that floc slower. But any differences will even out over time, I would think.