Three questions about adding DRIED fruit as an fpac, in my case so far this is just related to tweaking kit wines.
1st - is a sautee still suggested? Or any sort of chopping up of the fruit to better expose the sugars to the wine yeast? Or just throw it into a muslin or nylon sack? It seems like the drying process intensifies the sugars quite a bit and also breaks down cell walls and skins a bit, so I have added raisins, apricots, and grape skins (dry and wet) with no further treatment. But if I want to add a larger dried fruit like some apricots, cherries, figs, etc. should I shop them up first, or even sautee and cool them down first? I have tasted raisins and apricots which I added to primary and did an extended maceration, and they tasted like they'd given up nearly all their sugar and most of their flavor as well.
2nd - I was sad to see that a few of the dried fruits we keep in the house, mostly for baking, had sunflower oil added. Presumably so the fruit does not stick together, maybe so it seems moister too? I am really leery of adding anything but dried fruit, or possibly fruit with some added sulfite (but no sorbate) as a preservative. Short of finding dried fruit with no oil on it, is there a way to easily rinse the oil off? I feel like if I soak it in alcohol to get the oil off I will lose flavor, and I definitely won't use any soap to get the oil off. So feeling like I cannot use this fruit, but maybe the amount of oil is so small that adding no more than 16 oz. to a 5/6 gallon batch of wine will not add any noticeable oil. Any advice is welcome.
3rd - dried fruit is more concentrated, should I use proportionately less?