Morning everyone, I am extremely new to brewing at home, having only done the "boil" part of the process at a you-brew store (they get the wort boiling, you add specialty grains, hops, moss, etc..)
I was inspired to start at home from tasting a friends home brew beer that was one of the best I've ever had.
I am seeking advice on equipment, batch sizes and a couple starting recipes.

My equipment:
-40L primary bucket (no lid, came in a kit and has a plastic sheet as a cap which my LHBS said should be fine and they packaged the kit). Should I get a real 5 or 6.5 gallon with lid and drill a hole?
-6 Gallon glass carboy
-2 plastic 5 gallon carboys (were used for wine). These are old, like 10+ years but appear to be in good condition, no weird smells or damage.
-Bungs and airlocks for all the carboys.
-Stir paddle/spoon. This isn't very long, maybe a foot and a half, should I get a longer one?
-Iodophor for sanitizing
-small tub of Diversol
-3 thermometers. 2 clip on for the pots, different manufacture and both seem accurate at ambient and boil. 1 floating which is accurate but takes forever (like almost a minute) to show temp.
-Hydrometer
-5 gallon aluminum pot. Nice and thick aluminum, restaurant surplus I snagged
-7.5 gallon aluminum pot. This is a turkey fryer pot and quite thin but boiled water outside in the freezing cold in a reasonable time (I believe 30mins, not super accurate sorry).
-Siphon with bottling wand. I have a "regular" siphon and an autosiphon.
-5 gallon paint strainer bags. Seem to be strong and well made.
-Miscelaneous 3 gallon food grade bucks from the grocery store (frosting) for free. 5 Gallon thin walled "ice cream tubs".
-Bottles. I have a hundreds of 650ml bottles from my "you-brew" adventures.

My desire/goal:
I'd like to brew as large a batch as possible each time that will fit my equipment. I would like to brew once a week and buy the fermenters as I go along, hence my bucket/carboy questions.

Questions:
-Do I have what I need/am I missing any equipment?
-What batch size should I be targeting with my pots? 4 gallon? 3?
-If I get 5 gallon pails for fermenting and a bottling bucket of the same size am I good to go (given my bottle reserve )?
-What is a reliable, inexpensive way to keep a thin walled aluminum pot at mash temp?
-Are my grain bags big enough for now? I intend to buy the well recommended bags from a user here in time.
-What am I missing !?

Recipes:
I love all beer buy tend to shy away from lighter beers. I drink a lot of IPA's and ESB's but also really enjoy a nice stout. Given the choice I'd almost always go for a decently hopped but malty ESB.
This is the style of recipe I'd be looking for and I absolutely will be using the biabacus (i'll have more questions then too!)

Sorry for the long post, I just wanted to give all the information I can think of and lean on the guidance and experience present here. I've been reading threads for the last few days and have certainly learned a great deal.


EDIT:
My apologies, I also have a copper immersion cooler that my brother in law (plumber) built. I already told him if things go well he's going to be doing a lot of work for me
The good news is he is 100% happy being paid in beer.

Thank you PP, I will re-read the commentary (maybe when not so sleepy) and the "sweet liquor shops" post was a great breakdown.
I think that I will scale down to 3 gallon batches using my 7.5 gallon kettle (full volume BIAB).

As per the commentary I am going to try an APA for the first batch. I've edited the amarillo APA BIABacus with my kettle dimensions and made a checklist.

Any feedback is appreciated and if I have missed something I apologize, there is certainly a lot to take in for a new brewer.

Good catch JackRussel, that definitely is supposed to be 17c and 10 minutes for mashout. I corrected the EBC as well as they were all off.
The fermentation length I copied from the APA recipe linked in the forum here. No issues going longer if recommended.


at this point I think I only have a questions about a potential cheap fermentation vessel but probably not appropriate here.

Thanks to you and PP for the responses, I will try this on Thursday and let you know how it goes