Process stalled?

Just wondering what went wrong. A pale ale that i have brewed before spent 4 days in the fermentation pail. Huge head of froth same as before, died down. Transfered to a caboy and seems like i have no activity now for 5 days. Last time i had visible activity in the airlock for the whole 10 days in the caboy.The stuff i use is a simple "ready to go" just add the yeast, bag of wort from fiesta brew and the last two batches (a blonde lauger also) have been great.
scratching my head
MB

You shouldn't use the airlock to judge fermentation activity. The only true way to know if its stopped is to take a gravity reading and see if its finished. There is probably still some work going on, the yeast is cleaning up byproducts of fermentation and making your beer better. Did you take a gravity reading before transferring to the secondary?

Check you temperatures, was the fermentation temp of your first batch higher or lower? If lower it took the whole ten days, if your second was higher, it probably fermented out in three. Most of my ales take no longer than 3-5 days tops to ferment out and I keep them in the mid 70'sF. This second batch may have had a couple of things different that made it ferment more vigorously over a shorter period: it was better aerated and got off to a quicker start, ditto with a healthier batch of yeast. Give it a taste, it is probably fully attenuated, or if it isn't pitch more yeast and see if it shows any sign of life. My bet is that a higher temp ferment finished quicker than the last.

It's hard to say if anything went wrong unless you have gravity readings showing a problem. In general, I would recommend just leaving it in the bucket until its done rather than transfer to a carboy after only four days. For me, two weeks is usually enough time for fermentation to complete.

Indeed my temps were higher, and the bucket literally had the lid lifted off with the initial ferment, my gravity reading said ready to bottle after 4 days in the bucket but i transfered it anyways. how long do you think i can/should leave it inthe carboy? or should i bottle it right away?

thanks for the quick replys and helpful advice folks

MB