apricot wheat - need advice

Did a few searches, but didn't really find a good answer to my questions. I have a wheat beer that has been sitting in the primary for about 3 weeks, and I would like to add apricot flavor to the beer. What would be the best method of doing this? I've heard of people actually adding fresh apricot, preserves, and also just adding apricot flavoring to the bottles. I would prefer to just use fresh apricot, so my questions are:

1) How does one sanitize the fruit before adding to the fermenter? Would the alcohol in the beer kill anything that would be on the apricots?

2) How much fresh apricots should I add for a 5 gallon batch? I've heard people add a pound of fruit per gallon, but that seems like a lot to me.

thanks in advance!

I've used the flavoring and the fruit. I've come to kind of despise the flavoring. It does the trick if you're looking for a little hint, but it doesn't come close to capturing the actual feel of a fruit beer.

If you do use the flavoring, though, which is by far the easiest, don't use more than half the bottle on a 5 gal batch.

For fruit, I've always used canned products without a problem. Just dump them into a carboy and then rack out of the primary. Someone correct me if there is an issue with this, but my understanding is that they pasteurize those guys, which means they are sanitary.

I'd certainly prefer to use fresh fruit, but mlhbs guy told me about some crazy three day process that involved some wild chemical and I passed.

Sounds like my best bet would be canned fruit then. How much did you use for a 5 gallon batch? Did your beer come out as expected?

I tend to use all of what I buy even when that's not wise. I used an entire regular/smalish can, wish I could tell you the oz but I'm just not sure.

It did come out the way I hoped, but that's going to probably be different depending on what you expect. I got a full flavor out of it, not just a background hint. Use less if you don't want it to be too noticeable.

And as always, check the ingredients. Try your best to get "just" fruit, I'm told some of the preservatives in canned fruit will cause problems in your beer. I suspect the warning is overblown but it's something to keep in mind.