cask conditioning

[TC2642]

After primary fermentation does it make much difference if you cask condition ale before bottling? Is the purpose of cask conditioning to let most of the sediment settle out before bottling? Does it matter how long I cask before bottling? Should I leave the cask in a warm or cool room - I seem to read conflicting advice.
If I am bottling after cask conditioning am I right in assuming I add the priming sugar at the end of the cask condition just before bottling? Do I then leave bottles in warm place for week and transfer to cold?
sorry for list of questions, thanks Patrick

It's really two different things, if your going to be bottling then your not really cask conditioning your beer, strictly speaking you only cask condition when you intend to drink from the cask (or more usually the keg). If you intend to bottle your beer it can be worthwhile leaving your beer for a couple of weeks in the secondary fermenter (if a normal gravity beer say 4-5%) before you bottle it. By secondary fermenter I mean the transfered beer from the original fermenter. If you are casking it then this secondary fermenter would be the final keg from which you disperse your beer from. If your bottling it then it's advisable that you transfer it to a container which isn't under pressure since there is really no point in it being under pressure since you are going to be bottling it and not drinking it from that container.

Now, when you want to bottle your beer the usual practice is to put it into a container (botting bucket) which has a tap at the bottom of it so as to make the transfer from container to bottle easier, it is in this container that you would add your priming sugar, not the secondary fermenter, and bottle from. You would add the priming sugar on the day that you want to bottle so as to mix it with the fresh beer and allow refermentation in the bottle rather than the secondary fermenter. I myself don't really worry about what the temp of the beer is at this stage but if it is colder then you are likely to get less foaming in the bottle when transferring it from the botting bucket to bottles. This also has the secondary effect of having less yeast sediment in your bottles since you have transferred it twice from an intial yeast cake to a secondary yeast cake to a minimal yeast cake but should still allow enough yeast in suspension for the bottles to condition and give enough sparkle to your beer.

[TC2642]

Just to add that you can then leave your bottles to cold condition for a couple of weeks to allow the yeast sediment to fall out of suspension before you sample. I don't bother myself, a couple of weeks at normal room temperature will usually leave my beer crystal clear and obviously you can check this by simply looking at a bottle every week, day or whatever.