I've done the annealing in the water with the torch, and even though the water does get quite warm the shank stays super hard. I've had mixed results by annealing in the water. I use a 50/50 alloy of ww/soft, and the bhn is still up there a ways on the nose (maybe 10-12) even after torching it. for rifle velocities it works fine, but for handgun the two-part method is better.
