Recipe help

I'm going to be brewing a porter from a True Brew extract kit. I'd like to substitute the can of dark LME with more DME, suggestions on what and how much I should get at my LHBS. I like a nice roasty robust porter, so any other helpful tips are appreciated.

LME is about 10% heavier than the same amount of sugar's worth of DME; so you can divide by 1.1 to convert from LME to DME. If your LME can is 3.3 lbs, use 3 lbs of DME, for example.

As for what kind, I know there are dark DMEs available, but at my LHBS they only have the pale stuff from Briess. If yours has something darker I'd go with that. Briess and Munton's both have a Dark, and Briess has Extra Dark which you can get from Northern Brewer. If you're using specialty grains (and I hope you are) the best thing would be to achieve the darkness and depth of flavor with that, and if the DME you buy is less flavorful than the LME you're replacing, you can up the specialty grains to fudge the flavor. A little chocolate malt goes a long way.

1-2 ounces of roasted barley added to recipe will increase the flavor. But just a little, too much and it will be more like a stout.

Thanks for the input. Yea, I bought 3 lbs of Dark DME to replace the 3.3 lbs of Dark LME. I wondered about flavor loss in not using the LME. Personally, I have just found that I dont like that twang syrupy flavor that the LME leaves, so I'm gonna try a brew without it.

Also, if I do add a little roasted or chocolate malt to this, should I add more hops? It only calls for 1 oz of UK First Gold

I wouldn't add any more hops. The dark specialty malts don't add much in the way of sugar so you shouldn't have to worry about decreasing the bitterness by adding them.