Is there a recommended way of establishing an SSLSocket connection to to a peer with a timeout on the handshake process - ssl

Question

I have read some answers which do not resolve my question fully e.g. Placing timeout for SSLSocket handshake. This answer requires me to layer a plaintext socket under an SSLSocket which I would rather not do if there is an alternative. The relevant part of my code is as follows (FYI I'm not hardcoding passwords its just for testing):
private static SSLSocket establishConnection(InetAddress ipv4, int port) {
try {
int ksn = Stub.getKeystoreNum();
SecurityUtilities su = new SecurityUtilities("truststore" + ksn + ".jks", "keystore" + ksn + ".jks", "trustcert", "mykey");
KeyStore keystore = su.loadKeyStore("password".toCharArray());
KeyStore truststore = su.loadTrustStore("password".toCharArray());
KeyManagerFactory keyManagerFactory = KeyManagerFactory.getInstance(KEY_MANAGER);
keyManagerFactory.init(keystore, "password".toCharArray());
TrustManagerFactory trustManagerFactory = TrustManagerFactory.getInstance(KEY_MANAGER);
trustManagerFactory.init(truststore);
// specify TLS version e.g. TLSv1.3
SSLContext serverContext = SSLContext.getInstance(TLS_VERSION);
serverContext.init(keyManagerFactory.getKeyManagers(), trustManagerFactory.getTrustManagers(), SecureRandom.getInstance(RNG_ALGORITHM, RNG_PROVIDER));
// THIS CODE IS MY ATTEMPT AT ESTABLISHING AN SSLSOCKET WITH A TIMEOUT
SSLSocketFactory fact = serverContext.getSocketFactory();
SSLSocket socket = (SSLSocket) fact.createSocket();
socket.connect(new InetSocketAddress(ipv4.getHostAddress(), port), CON_TIMEOUT);
return socket;
} catch (IOException | GeneralSecurityException e) {
System.out.println("tls node connection failed");
}
return null;
}
My code successfully establishes a connection and having tested it with tcpdump I found that it does indeed seem to encrypt the data transmitted with it. However because I have read that it's not possible to create an SSLSocket without having it immediately connect e.g.
return (SSLSocket) fact.createSocket(ipv4.getHostAddress(), port);
and because the connect method is defined in Socket and not SSLSocket I feel I am making some kind of mistake. additionally I have seen multiple examples which utilize the SSLSocket.startHandshake() method is this necessary as I have successfully established connections with the previous line of code alone?
Thanks for any help