Does a brew always require sugar/DME?

Hi, please excuse what is likely to be a stupid and noob-tastic question.

I'm very new at this, and have only done a couple of brews not from kits.

I wanted to try John J Palmer's Port O'Palmer recipe, but couldn't find any reference to sugar or DME in the recipe, I wasn't sure if all the sugars the brew needed can be find in the various malt extract and malted grains, or if it needed an additional amount of sugar/spray malt?

The recipe is: 3kg malt extract (liquid); 227g crystal malt; 227g chocolate malt; 113g black patent malt (and hops).

Should I add 1kg of sugar to this as well?

Would appreciate any help or explanation before I go and brew 40 pints of exceptionally alcoholic/alcohol-free beer!!!

Only add sugar if you want to thin out the beer and make it higher in alcohol. All the sugars needed are i nthe malt extract and little from the crystal malt.

Well the reason you aren't finding a need for DME is because you're using LME. Which is DME and water.

hoppymonkey said:

Only add sugar if you want to thin out the beer and make it higher in alcohol. All the sugars needed are i nthe malt extract and little from the crystal malt.

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Some recipes/styles call for it, like Belgians. But unless a recipe calls for it, you don't really want to add any.

But like 'monkey says, often kit beers like Cooper's will have you add some sugar. But most recipes, unless it's style specific, don't need it.

In the case of DME, it and liquid malt extract are pretty much the same thing, just one is in liquid form and the other dry (and because of that you use different amounts depending on which.)

But with a John Palmer recipe you don't really want to alter it, that's like putting a mustache on the Mona Lisa.

Righto! Thanks a lot, much appreciated, that makes a lot of sense!

huh?You use the liquid malt ectract as stated in the recipe. If your asking and you only have dry malt extract you would use a little less.Not shure the exact amount but i would guess a little over 5 #.
The recipe knows what its doing i dont get why you are asking to use additional amounts?

...mainly because I just wanted to check - I've never brewed before without using at least some sugar, so I wanted to be sure before I went ahead. I wasn't questioning the recipe as such, just making sure it wasn't a given that I would add some sugar at some stage.

Nah.

But I figured being from the UK you brewed cooper's kits, right? So adding sugar would be quite common to you.

Spot on, that's absolutely right!