How much time does it take to mill?

Milling is a very small part of the baking process - assuming you have an electric mill. My Nutrimill takes about 2 1/2 minutes per pound of flour. So I pour the wheat in the top of the mill, turn it on and while it is running, I get out my other ingredients for what I'm making. I never have to wait for the flour since it is ready before I have even gotten my other ingredients ready. I have a scale next to my mill so I can measure what I need if I am just milling for a specific recipe. One cup equals about 4 oz. or figure 4 cups per pound. If I have any extra flour at the end, I put it in a bag in the freezer to use later. For yeast bread I always use freshly milled. For things like pancakes, cookies, and banana bread, I tend to use the flour from the freezer since I haven't noticed a difference between freshly milled that day vs. freshly milled from the freezer.

Cleanup - my mill shoots the flour into a sealed bowl that is then covered in flour on the inside. Since I use my mill about every other day, I typically just brush the flour off with a pastry brush rather than washing with soap and water. There are several parts to the bowl and if you wash with water, make sure you get everything completely dry before using - flour and water make a pasty mess and you don't want wet flour. Also, the lid won't go back on the bowl unless you rub flour on the seal so it is easier if you just leave the flour on it and not wash it if you are using the mill all the time. I do wash it with water about every week or so. Other mills may not have the bowl to clean. The Fidibus 21 just has a little shoot that drops the flour into your own bowl. I'm guessing that since it is a stone mill, the flour comes out more gently whereas my steel impact mill requires a sealed bowl so my kitchen wouldn't be covered in flour.

Also considered in the time factor is where you get your wheat. Since you can't buy it at your local grocery store, you'll need to find a source for wheat. Fortunately for me, we have a wonderful store close to us that carries several varieties of wheat. Since I am all about efficiency and saving time, I bought 100 pounds of wheat last time so I wouldn't have to make an extra trip for grain for a few months. It is only 10 miles from us but not near my usual errands. The wheat comes in 50 pound bags and we transfer it to gallon ziploc bags so it is sealed and we can examine the wheat as we repackage it. I'll get more into storage of wheat later.

So in a nutshell, figure on the milling step taking you a total of 5 minutes per recipe including weighing, pouring, and cleanup. Compared to the amount of time it takes to actually measure, mix, knead, bake, etc., it is an insignificant amount of time for quality of flour you are getting.