No activity after transfer to secondary...

Well, it should only be in secondary once primary is finished, so you really shouldn't see anything. Or at least that is how I always understood secondary.

 

Yeah, if primary fermentation is done, there is no more sugar to restart fermentation if you transfer to a secondary. If primary fermentation was not quite done, the remainder of the off-gassing of the CO2 is will be minimal and it's going to take a little while for it to fill the head space and begin to bubble in the air lock, if it will at all.

What's your reason for using a secondary, and how much head space is in there?

 

Did you take an OG and FG? Also, why do you want to see fermentation bubbles in a secondary?

Spirits won't kill yeast so long as you're still in the alcohol tolerance range.

 

You'll see on this forum that it's common brewing practice to leave the beer on primary until you are sure it hits FG and for at least a few days after that to let the yeast clean up after themselves. I tend to let my beer hang out on primary for 3-4 weeks. I'm not brewing in a conical, I'm in no rush to drink, and I won't drink a beer that isn't at least 6 weeks old. Why bother, is my thought. I don't secondary unless I am oaking, adding fruit, or I'm doing a sour. It looks like I'm in the majority, but it's not uncommon to see brewers doing their own thing:

https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/dont-secondary.387698/

I won't knock you for racking to secondary. I will knock you for not checking and rechecking for FG and for moving your beer too soon to secondary.

If all of the fermentable sugar is out of the beer, then you won't see bubbles in secondary. Bubbles are a sign of fermentation, but lack of activity in a bubbler is common--even if your beer is actively fermenting.

Make sure you use a conversion for your FG when you use your refractometer. EtoH skews the brix reading on your plate.

That said, you made beer and it will be tasty.

 

I'll be very blunt here, but I'm not trying to be an ass.

Bubbles don't tell you shit about your beer! Stop paying attention to them!

IF you are going to bother with a secondary, then make sure the beer is ready, figure out what the gravity is and THEN transfer IF it is where it should be. Your beer will thank you.

 

The secondary is only for extended aging. Leaving the beer on the yeast for more than like 6 weeks, give or take, could cause cell autolysis which makes your beer taste like soy sauce. BUT, keeping it on the yeast for ~7-10 days at a minimum is usually a good idea so that the yeast can clean up any diacetyl or acetylaldehyde that was produced. After that, if you aren't planning on bottling for another 2 months, then a secondary is a good idea, but otherwise it doesn't really matter.

 

Essentially that 30-35 minutes was steaming water away, not sugar, so the OG would have been higher than expected. Unless you started with extra water to allow for the boil-off, or if you added top-off water after the boil to get up to the volume level of liquid for the recipe your OG reading would have been too high for what the recipe calls for.

Was this an all-grain brew? If so, then the efficiency of the mash is probably the issue to look at.

 

Regarding when/if you should rack to secondary, this article covers most of the bases:
https://www.morebeer.com/articles/conditioning

 

My porter came out to 6.43% and i find it really brings out the smell and flavor better. I'll probably go lower next time.

 

You could boil to your heart's content and top off to the original volume over and over again. OG would not change.

 

You probably just got bad extraction from your partial mash. That would cause fewer sugars in your wort, so filling it back up to 5 gallons would cause a lower OG.