Mashing in Kettle

I just bought a ten gallon stainless steel kettle with a temperature gauge. My goal was to mash in that, transfer to a second pot, clean out the mashing kettle and then boil in there. When I was mashing, it was nearly impossible for me to get a consistent temperature. I had to stir for literally an hour. Is there a step in here I am missing to make this successful?

A lot of people will use an insulated cooler for a mash tun. The insulation helps hold the temperature for the proper amount of time and keep things nice and warm.

I do a lot of BIAB brewing on my stove top and have little difficulty keeping the mash between 153-155f. Consistent monitoring and tweaking on and off the heat is par for the course with all grain brewing in a brew pot. My process requires me hitting a strike temperature around 165f and when the grains bring down the temps, adding more heat as needed. I stir on occasion to prevent dough balls and use a metal colander on the bottom of the brew pot to prevent settling and scorching.

I do BIAB in a 10 gallon kettle and wrap the kettle in a heavy fleece jacket that fits snugly over the top, and then put a towel around that. My mash temps will drop about 2 degrees during a 75 minute mash.

The problem with the wrap is that I can't give the kettle any heat unless I undo it, nor can my wife or kids use the stove. I guess that's why I brew at 6am.

I'm confused then. How are you supposed to mash out then?

I've used this process twice and pleased with it so far. All I needed was a bazooka screen. I don't have an efficiency number to provide...still learning. However, my OG came out close to the recipe and it passed the iodine test before I started boiling.

http://morebeer.com/brewingtechniques/library/backissues/issue2.3/schmidling.html

Wrap it with a blanket or towels...my temperature drops 2 degrees at most over 30 minutes.

How much headspace on the top do you have? Too much space between the top of the water and the top of the pot might be where your having problems.