Hot Mud is what we use for setting since it cures by checmical reaction vs evaporation, thus making a much stronger, less prone to cracking embedment job. When using the hot mud, use mesh tape since it's essentially like mortaring a joint and you want it to fill the void behind the joint as well as the tape. My subs will use hot mud initially when they first get on site and pack all the gaps with hot mud. Once the gaps are packed full they then switch over and use typical general purpose premixed joint compound to embed the papertape....so whichever method you chose, there's you steps. Hot mud comes in varying drying times, 5 minute, 20 minute, 45 minute, 90 minute, and 210 minute. If doing large area's mix up a large batch of the 210 and your fine, smaller touch up jobs use a faster setting compound. When we do a small project, i keep it in house and we use hot mud exclusively, 20 minute to be exact, and we can have a complete bathroom done in a single day, textured and all...larger projects like a garage, it's going to take a few days, so saving/maximizing time is not as critical.
If your using the premixed, "bucket mud" the green lid has more adhesive in it and is used for first coat/tape embedding, and usually the second coat as well, then use the blue, lightweight mud for the top coat/final coat since it sands very easy.
Hints/tricks when using premixed bucket mud- once you scoop the mud into your pan, add some water, not much, but add water to the pan and stir it in. Out of the bucket the mud is EXTREMELY stiff and all but impossible to spread it smoothly and get a nice thin coat that will dry without cracking due to being laid to thick since it's hard to manipulate it with the knife.
When using/mixing hot mud, use ONLY clean COLD water to get extended working time. Using old dirty water from say a bucket your using to brush your knifes on it will severely increase drying time of the hot mud, same with using warm or hot water, it will turn typical 20 minute mud into 5-10minute mud.
When using hot mud, clean your pan, knife IMMEDIATELY after you put on a batch, this stuff cures and gets to be just like concrete, dont hink your going to buy yourself any time by submerging a mud coated knife in a bucket of water, hot mud will cure and get rock hard even under water...so clean your tools throughouly when using hot mud after each coat...unless your using 90 or 210minute mud, then your working window is alot larger, but like i stated, we use 20 minute almost exclusively so we clean up after each coat...PITA, but we're also doing complete rooms in a day's time so it's the price we pay for expediating the process.
Thin coats is key, it's 1000x's easier to apply one more coat, then it is to sand it back off. Once you lay your first coat on, inevitabley there will be ridges from dragging the knife through soft mud, do not sand these, if you apply this correctly, there is zero sanding taking place until the final finish before the texture is applied. so for the ridges, boogered up inside corners, use your knife and "chisel" it down, no dust, and makes quick work of knocking down ridges.
SS knifes are great, but stiff so it takes a special touch to apply the mud due to theri stiff nature, we use blue steel knives for blending/feathering coats. I will put one side of the knife on the high area and the other half on the wall, and i push/put more pressure on the knife side on the bare wall, so it flexes the knife blade and "trowels" the mud on to a nice thin SMOOTH coating, holding the knife is 90% of what makes your job easier hard along with mud consistency.
I took one day off and worked with our drywall sub for a day years ago to pick up on their tricks to hone my own skillz, and watering down mud, and knife manipulation is key to spreading mud and not having to put on 5 gallons of mud, then sand off 4. We've got it down now to where there is zero sanding taking place until the end and that's just feathering in the hard edges into the wall surface, since when applied right your not making more work for yourself.
Hope this helps, but it's one thing to read, and another to apply it, but at least know everbody has a heads up since drywall ***** LOL!!
It definitely takes a ton of practice, something I don't have much of.