@ARE_you_kidding_me Yes, a big pot is key. We have a 10 gallon pot and a 8 gallon pot, and we have two propane burners. We run an all mash and an extract brew side by side and do it in the garage.
And just back to the water so this doesn’t get modded :-) Seriously, distilled water is fine. It’s just nigh undrinkable because all the taste in the water is from the added solutes. Now, that said, if you drink gallons and gallons of it you’ll get water toxic, but the only difference between distilled water and “spring” water or tap water is trace amounts of various types of salts.
In fact, you can make an argument (which I don’t buy, but the argument can be made) that distilled water is SAFER, because it’s just pure water—nothing else. It doesn’t have any of the trace run off petrochemicals that you might find in regular water.
Now back to the beer. You don’t absolutely need a wort chiller, but it’s nice to have. We’re absolutely compulsive about sanitation so dumping two gallons of cold water in a wort wouldn’t work for us. But I can see how the short cut would work.