Cold Crash Question

Since I now have a temp controlled fermenter I was thinking of trying to cold crash my current batch. It is an ale that will have been in primary for a week on 6/20. I normally like to leave them in primary for about two weeks before I go to bottles. I will be checking the gravity to make sure fermentation is done before I start to chill the beer.

I have a few questions regarding the process though. Should I wait until the entire two weeks are up before lowering the temps to allow the yeast time to clean things up a bit, or will it be OK to chill it down before the two weeks as long as the fermentation is completed?

Also how long should I leave it chilled? What temp should I aim for? And can I go directly to bottles or should I allow it warm up before it is bottled?

I prefer to wait the two-three weeks personally. I like giving the yeast time to clean up. But I would also transfer to a secondary before crashing just to help get rid of extra trub and such. But again, that's a personal preference. Let is sit at about 34-36 deg for two weeks or so, then bottle. Bottling cold is just fine, as is bringing it back up to room temp. Hurray Beer!

There's been a couple of times that I have forgotten about it and chilled it down 2 days before I was going to keg and I still noticed a difference

Like jacksonbrown said, I like to ferment out completely before I crash it, but I only leave mine for a week but that's only because I don't have the patience to wait longer

I usually only cold crash for a couple of days.....3-4 max. Clear beer..... I'd wait until the 2 weeks are up before I'd lower the temp though....

Something i'm finally nailing down is to correct for temperature when making priming sugar additions. Colder beer means that more CO2 is already dissolved in there, so less sugar is needed when priming. Cold crashing is great, but for a while it lead to some slightly over-carbed IPAs for me.