That sounds like a ton of sugar. What size batch? It's definitely going to dry out your beer, as all the sugar (save for the tiny amount of molasses they add) is essentially just white table sugar and is totally fermentable. May even get some cider-y-ness from that much sugar. I'd stick to whatever recipe you have.
Good luck
It's not TOTALLY fermentable, at least in the sense that the mollasses in the sugar leaves some residual flavor. The more darker the more pronounced flavor.
Also, three cups isn't all that much in a 5 gallon batch, really not enough for the so called "cideri-ness" that new brewers have "heard you shouldn't use too much because it makes our beer cidery." We're not talking 5 pounds in a 5 gallon batch. It's probably only a pound by weight.
We need to get over using this blanket "if you add sugar your beer will turn cidery" b.s......It's an over simplification of something, don't keep repeating it verbatum.
Sugar additions are not the enemy....if a recipe calls for it, it should be used. It's not the same as a frat boy dumping a couple of pounds of sugar more of sugar to bump up the high. Many styles like Belgians are built on sugar additions to dry the higher grav beer out, and bump up the grav while thinning out the body.
Using sugar is not bad,
it's using too much sugar in proportion to the rest of the grain bill that you shouldn't do.
If a recipe calls or kit calls for it, don't assume the person who wrote the recipe or made the kit is an idiot who doesn't know anything about what he's doing....assume the sugar has a place. Recipes are about balance and telling someone who knows nothing about recipe creation that all sugar is bad, and you should automatically swap it for malt is bad advice. It won't be the same beer if they arbitrarily swap sugar for malt.
There's plenty of beers that use various sugars in beers, including using darker ones that won't totally ferment out but leave lots of flavor notes to the beer. Other beers need the sugar to cut the body a little.
It's not a blanket "sugar is bad" idea, there's more times where sugar is welcome then where it's bad. And honestly cooper's kits are designed for sugar, not for malt. There not designed to have 5 pounds more indiscriminantly dumped in to make it stronger, but they were created and vetted not by idiots but by professional brewers, and those recipes have been vetted, and a corporation's rep at stake.
A sparkling ale, is sparkling partially because of the sugar added to it. It wouldn't be the same beer with malt added. You can't have a Belgian without 2-3 pounds of candi sugar in a recipe......
That whole thing about not adding sugar or else you make "cidery" beer is one of those little "chestnuts" that noobs repeat without thinking deeper about it. When we talk about it being a bad thing, is when the ration of sugar to malt quite high, like frat boys trying to bump up their coopers can...yeah that's a bad thing...but we're not talking about that here, we're talking about an acceptable brewing process for many styles of beer...and in your case just about priming your beer.
I mean do you like Belgian beers? Are they crappy tasting because of the simple sugars that are added? If you like them, that's how they achieved the beer you like.
Belgian beers are a style that are supposed to have simple sugars in it. It raises the abv, but it also cuts down on some of the body, promotes the formation of certain flavors and helps dry the beer out.
A pound or two, isn't going to affect the beer in a negative way, especially if the recipe calls for. Even a cooper's which people want to deride, or some others suggest replacing with malt extract, is really meant to have exactly the amount of sugar the recipe might call for. But if you willy nilly add a couple more pounds to it, that's another story.
That sri lankin stout I made had 2.2 pounds of Jaggery in it, and was primed with date palm molasses....one of my beer judge buddies said it was one of the best beers of mine he's tasted.
It's about balance in a recipe, the correct amount of sugar in a recipe is fine, and often serves an important purpose.
Please, don't be one of those brewers who just repeats what he hears. Look around, do some reading, do some critical thinking about stuff, for example "how come belgian beers have sugar added and they don't taste bad or cidery?" Just don't repeat those brewing chestnuts you hear. Most of them turn out to be either wrong, have a different context to them than what it's repeated about, or are a little more complex than a mere statement like "Adding sugar makes your beer cidery."
If your pumpkin has a substantial grainbill and a relatively above average gravity, 3 cups of sugar will probably make for a tasty addition to your recipe.
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