I’m building a new house , will be ready I’m 9 months or so . I plan on putting a small barn on the property and plan on building an insulated room in the barn with temp/humidity control to start a barrel aging program . Mostly doing saison and single barrel lambic. Anyone here with experience caring for barrels and doing natural fermentation ? I plan on using a cool ship at least once a year as I’ll be right next to a wheat field so I’m hoping there will be plenty of wild bacteria and yeast in the air. Barrels will be used wine barrels at about 60 gallons.

I do barrel aging at work, not really that hard. Mostly bourbon barrels, did a wine barrel or two as well.
What are you wondering about? I never used a cool ship for wild fermentation.

Wild fermentation is a total crap shoot.  You could be in area that has really good wild yeast and other brewing bugs.  Then again you could get some really nasty stuff.  There are very few breweries that do true wild fermentations.  It's just too hard to control and repeat the out come.  I'd hate to gamble with 60 gallons of beer.    

Now saying that, if it were me, I'd start small and work up.  I'd brew a 5-10 gallon batch.  I'd let it open ferment exactly where I would be doing the 60 gallon batch.  I'd forgo the barrel aging on the first batch just see what flavors I get.  Knowing that once the barrel is infected there is no changing the strain.  I'd age it out and for sure drink it if it's palatable.

Now if it's to your liking!  Repeat with 60 gallons and load the barrel up.  Knowing the barrel will change it some.  If it's not to your liking.  I'd buy the strains of yeast/bugs I liked in other beers and go closed fermentation.  I'd inoculate the barrel with the desired stains of Brettanomyces, Lactobacillus, or Pediococcus.  And, brew until the barrel stopped producing good beers.

Im curious about barrel maintenance, cleaning and headspace. Do I have to do anything monthly for the barrels or just let them sit?

If you haven’t seen, there’s a new strain called Philly Sour, ferments and produces lacto at same time. As above, I’d buy from Omega and inocculate what I wanted.

When I use bourbon barrels, I'm lucky to have a distillery near by so I can get wet barrels,the beer is done fermenting and cold to drop the yeast. I'll
put some CO2 in and then just fill them up leaving about an inch below the bung
opening, not draining any bourbon that might be still in there. I'll hose off any beer over flow. If there is a leak the wood swells up to seal it. Then I'll move them out of the
way and let them be for about 6 months. We'll pull a sample out and if what we're looking for then I'll empty them.


These are the bungs I use https://www.gwkent.com/barrel-fermentation-plus-bungs.html

This is the tool to put beer in/get out https://www.gwkent.com/bulldog-barrel-transfer-tube.html
Use CO2 pressure to get out, you could make something with a racking cane, bung, and a few fittings.

Cleaning, as in to use them again? I only use them once.
You could this https://morewinepro.com/products/oak-restorer-cw-cool-water.html
I've heard of people using hot water but never done this myself.

One thing to look out for is if the barrel had the head replaced, people like to use them for displays. If it has been it needs to be sanitized, I use alcohol, the chance for infection is high.

Hope this is helpful, any other questions just ask and I'll try to help.