Apple/Banana wine... a few questions

[Dahc]

I had a friend bring me three gallons of peaches not too long ago and the first thing I had thought to do with them is make some wine. I had thought to myself that peaches and bananas would make an interesting mix so I obtained 9 lbs of bananas as well. As fate would have it, I ended up turning the peaches over to my wife for some baked goods. Then, I went and got 3 gallons of apple juice to go with the bananas. The preservative in this apple juice is ascorbic acid which I read on this site will be ok to use.

I am really, really new to winemaking and have been messing around with rice/sugar wine to try my hand at it. It has turned out well so I want to move on and I have some questions about this new wine I'm trying. I saw on the apfelwein thread that the maker used a relatively small amount of sugar and he ended up with around 8.5% abv. I kind of want a higher percentage and was wondering what folks thought concerning how much sugar can be added here.

There'll be 3 gallons of the no sugar added apple juice and approx 6-7lbs of cooked off bananas in a 5 gallon batch. Is there anything about apple or banana wine to watch out for? Any reason I can't mix these two?

I have read the banana wine thread and several others but I'm still a little unsure of myself. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[FromZwolle]

are you making two separate batches and blending them, or one, multidimetional batch? i think two separate flavors blended together would be better, but i'm a bit green as far as wine goes, so don't take my opinion as expertise.

 

[Dahc]

are you making two separate batches and blending them, or one, multidimetional batch? i think two separate flavors blended together would be better, but i'm a bit green as far as wine goes, so don't take my opinion as expertise.

I was thinking of fermenting these together.

 

[FromZwolle]

that may well work out great, but i keep thinking that some of the flavors might get muddied if they fermented out at the same time. again, i'm a novice with wines, but thats the thought that comes to mind.