Yeah, once you got trough several time. The thaumcraft research minigame is faster to just do it then to alt tab to look for an answer. And if you do it right, you can make it better then the research helper I found on the net.
Speaking of thaumcraft, I might sound like an old disk but a botania orechid + alchemy.
The orchedid produce ore, the alchemy allow you to transform any metal into any other (except gold which is a pain to mass produc).
My last heavy dose of TC, I had two dedicated mana bean farms being tended by golems. One was Lucrum, and the other, larger, farm was Metallum. Since they were chunkloaded on a server and being auto distilled, I had all the iron and gold I wanted.