Folks, the amount of heat needed to anneal a brass case neck is not great. It doesn’t need to be red hot. Brass anneals at 750 degrees F and a candle tip gets 2500 degrees F.
For those unwilling to research…. Hold the case at the middle while rotating the neck in the blue tip of the candle flame. Once the case is too hot to hold, drop it to be air cooled. Wipe neck with a damp cloth to remove soot. Cold water dunking is not needed when candle annealing. Considering I’ve done about 300 cases by this method, I know it works. It was developed by a metallurgist, Fred Barker.