Need to boil Coopers liquid malt extract?

I know this has probably been asked 100 times and I apologize. I just picked up my first brewing kit last night and have a question on the Coopers Austrailian Pale Ale liquid malt extract that I'm going to use on my first brew.

The instructions say all you need to do is put it in the fermentation bucket and add some boiling water & fermenter but I have read elsewhere that you need to boil this along with the fermentation suger before adding to the bucket. Which is correct? FYI, this is already hopped extract.

Also, my local supplier said to add a full 3lbs of DME to the liquid malt extract even though the Cooper instructions say to add about 2lbs. Again, am I going to screw this up if I add the extra pound of DME?

It's a no-boil kit, so it doesn't need to be boiled. You can boil the DME, though, to dissolve it well and sanitize it, then add it to the pre-hopped LME in the fermenter.

Adding an extra lb of DME will only increase the alcohol percentage of your beer, by about 1% for a 5 gallon batch.
Instead of worrying how much, get excited about how much! It's your beer, how strong do you want it to be?

Relax, don't worry, and have a homebrew.

Cool, thanks for the quick responses guys! It's time to try it out after I get home from work. The next 3 weeks until it's ready are going to seem like an eternity.

You'll need the addition of 2-3lbs of fermentables (DME, LME or Dextrose) to bring the alcohol level of the kit up to 4-5%. If you want something fuller body use 2-3lbs DME or LME. For something a little lighter sub half of the DME/LME with dextrose.

I think I'll add the full 3lbs of DME to the liquid extract.

Okay, I did my first brew ever tonight! I'll list what I did and you can critique it and let me know what I did right or wrong.

1. I boiled about a gallon of water and added the full 3lbs of DME to it and stirred for about 5 minutes to dissolve it.
2. I then added the Coopers liquid malt extract to the sugar water.
3. I cooled the mixture a bit then added it to my primary and added enough water to bring up the total to 6 gallons.
4. I guess I didnt cool the wort enough because it was about 88 degrees so I added some ice cubes to cool it down to 80 degrees.
5. Took an OG reading and it measured 1.053 temperature corrected. Is this okay for a pale ale?
6. Pitched the yeast and covered the primary. It was still a little too warm but I didnt want to keep it uncovered any longer and figured it was close enough.

Well, how does that sound? What do you think 1.053 OG will calculate out to alcohol % after fermentation is complete? I know the Cooper can kits are not the best but I wanted something that I will possibly succeed at for my first brew.