First Time Bottling?

[whirlybirds]

I have a few brews under my belt now, but never bottled any since I've have a kegerator and just went straight to keging. I've noticed on a few recipes, mainly stouts, that it recommends quite some time in a secondary fermenter. What is the reason for this? I understand that it's for conditioning, but what is the difference between fermenter conditioning and bottle conditioning? Would it make a difference if I cut back on the fermenting time, as long as the yeast is done doing it's job, and just bottled the brew and left to sit in a dark room temp area to condition?

 

[Antler]

As long as its done fermenting you can go ahead and bottle. The main reason a lot of people "bulk" condition rather than bottle condition is because they tend to drink most of the batch before it really conditions, bulk conditioning eliminates this.