[Eileen]

You cannot actually "anneal them", but you can slow the cooling process enough that smallish beads without thin pieces sticking out can often make it whole through the cooling, so that they can be annealed later.

Larger beads and ones with protrusions that will cool at a quite different rate as the main bead are more likely to crack. Also, some glass is more prone to cracking than others if not put immediately into a kiln.

There are also cooling bubbles that work similarly to vermiculite but are cleaner and some say work better, and there are also fiber blankets made to keep the heat for an extended time.

You can anneal later "batch anneal" by putting the cool beads in a cold kiln and bringing the temperature up in a controlled manner, and going through the controlled hold and cool down phases to actually anneal.