Sugar and Yeast

[badgerdan]

Hi all. I'm new to brewing and have only just bottled myfirst kit beer, however i'm wanting to start with extract brwing as i'll be able to choose what type i want from recipes which sounds really cool

Anyway, i've been looking at recipes and so far none mention about adding sugar. My kit used 1kg of sugar but when brewing from extract do you not need 1kg of sugar or is that just something you have to do so's not worth mentioning?

Also amounts of yeast is never mentioned either, is it just 1 pack in general and are they only one size?

Hope you can enlighten me

[ColinKeb]

some recipes dont need sugar as there is enough in the wort (or extract) to get the desired gravity. sugar creates a thinner beer so recipes using pure extract or all grain without sugar tend to be of much higher quality imho. if the recipe doesnt state sugar it wont need it.

as for yeast all recipes use yeast but if its not stated it usualy means its up to you which you use, depending on the type of beer youre brewing. basic all round yeast like nottingham are a good starting point.

good luck mate

[badgerdan]

Thanks for clearing that up.
So i take it that the the beer kits don't have enough sugar in them to produce enough alcohol hence why having to add 1kg of sugar to get around 4 - 5% of alcohol but malt extract does?

[wetdog]

no not quite, its the cheaper kits that require you to add sugar as there's not enough extract to produce the volume of alchohol the kit is aiming for. less extract = a cheaper kit which suits some people. the kits that don't require any sugar to be added (apart from priming sugar when bottling or kegging) are usually in a larger tin or there are 2 tins in the kit. these kits are a lot more expensive though.