Good-One Marshal or not???

[smokemaster712]

Hi everyone, this is one of my first posts. I have a Large Green Egg and love it.  In fact I am grilling or smoking on it most days of the week year round but I am needing something larger.  I have been looking at a Good-one Marshal.  Does anyone have any info on this cooker.  Would I be able to grill, smoke or even bake on it?  That is the versatility that I love with my egg.  Just yesterday a grilled steak and peppers for philly sandwiches for lunch then without shutting it down I smoked some ribs for supper and followed those up with cupcakes on the egg for the kids, OK I ate one too!!!  So long story short does anyone have info on a good-one marshals versatility as well as would I be able to cook on it and then shut it down to save the charcoal for next cook as I do with my egg.  Thanks for any help.

 

[noboundaries]

I don't have any experience with the Marshall by The Good One so I looked it up online.  Looks like a quality rig that will do everything you ask and last a while too.  Well designed and engineered.  With 2850 square inches of total cooking/smoking/grilling grate space you can do just about anything with it.       

 

[toddcc1]

I'm brand new to the forum, but read your question and have had both.  I turned out mediocre traditional smoked meats and excellent steaks and burgers.  Mainly because I had challenges with keeping consistent temps, ribs and brisket were always mediocre. You can get a BBQguru to help that, but I didn't bother.  

Downside to the BGE is that if your flame gets away from you, it is challenging to get it back down to a smoking temp.  Once that ceramic heats up, it'll be hours before it comes back down.  Adding more wood, can be painful...figuratively and literally.  I sold it and bought a MAK Grill Pellet smoker.  Great smoker and very versatile, but recently sold that and bought the Good One Marshall.  All I can say is awesome.  

Temps, for a draft/damper system it is astonishingly easy to dial in your temps.  The first couple products I've turned out have been phenomenal.  Temps hold very steady, I believe 2-6 degree temp swings every hour or so is what I was seeing.  Adding more charcoal and wood is a breeze.  'MERICA', Made in the USA.  

Ultimately, there's nothing wrong with a BGE.  Many use them and have successful cooks on them.  For me, it's limited in grill surface area, challenging to add more wood and charcoal and you just don't look as f'ing cool standing over a ceramic green dome.  You want a big black mass like the Death Star floating in your presence, as your male neighbor counterparts fight to hold the tongs, wear the heat gloves and generally admire your alpha position in neighborhood grill status.  

 

[smokemaster712]

Toddcc1, Thanks for the advice, Im new to the forum as well but let me say welcome.  It must have been luck, I was looking to just go buy an additional BGE this week.  I have a Lrg but was looking at buying an additional XLRG.  Glad you have stopped that idea.  I love what I do on the egg but like you stated it is a limited grill space and honestly I have always struggled to get a good smoke ring as well.   So it looks like I'll be heading to purchase the Good-One Marshal now that you have confirmed what I was looking for.  One question for you.  How is the lump coal consumption.  I'm looking to be able to not only cook/grill/smoke myself but may need to at times use it as a second oven for the wife and toss a couple side dishes in for her.  Also when you close the vents does it stop the coals from burning completely out allowing you to reuse the left over lump as I do with the egg?  Just looking at over all expense for a cook, or even a 12-15 hr smoke.  Really enjoyed your post, thanks again for the help.

 

[gomez93]

I have a Good-One Rodeo and yes it will do everything you asked about. At smoking temps of 225° to 275° mine burns between 3.5 and 4# of charcoal per hour; YMMV. The dampers will close tight enough to snuff out the fire, however usually by the time I'm done cooking there is so little charcoal left that I just open them up and burn it all.

 

[cuebiz]

I have a question for The Good One owners. I am ready to purchase the Marshall, and was wondering about how to route the temp probes without damaging the cables. Any suggestions? I have only seen demos on utube and it never mentions that part.

 

[toddcc1]

 
Toddcc1, Thanks for the advice, Im new to the forum as well but let me say welcome.  It must have been luck, I was looking to just go buy an additional BGE this week.  I have a Lrg but was looking at buying an additional XLRG.  Glad you have stopped that idea.  I love what I do on the egg but like you stated it is a limited grill space and honestly I have always struggled to get a good smoke ring as well.   So it looks like I'll be heading to purchase the Good-One Marshal now that you have confirmed what I was looking for.  One question for you.  How is the lump coal consumption.  I'm looking to be able to not only cook/grill/smoke myself but may need to at times use it as a second oven for the wife and toss a couple side dishes in for her.  Also when you close the vents does it stop the coals from burning completely out allowing you to reuse the left over lump as I do with the egg?  Just looking at over all expense for a cook, or even a 12-15 hr smoke.  Really enjoyed your post, thanks again for the help.

SmokeMaster712:

I don't know that I would have a good measure of lump burn.  I'm super anal about my fire temps.  I don't dump a complete bag in and let it go.  I start out with a small 2-3lb pile on one side and then every hour add an additional handful.  Unlike the video where they show an entire bag being dumped out, I prefer to start small, then build as required with the fire.  If I know I'm going to be out for a few hours, I will dump extra in there and it has been fine.  What I have not done is dump an entire bag of lump, light it, then sleep for 8 hours.  So, I wouldn't be able to comment towards that either.  For two briskets, 2 tri-tips and 5 racks of ribs, that's the most I've done in one cook, I went through 3/4 of a full bag of lump charcoal.  I use the Wicked Good Lump Charcoal.

Closing the vents snuffs the fire out fairly quickly, but the smoker will stay pretty hot for a few hours, even after the fire has been snuffed out.    

You're welcome.  Apologies for the late reply, as my wife and I just finished our move, which basically took me out of commission for about 1.5 months.

 
I have a question for The Good One owners. I am ready to purchase the Marshall, and was wondering about how to route the temp probes without damaging the cables. Any suggestions? I have only seen demos on utube and it never mentions that part.

I route them through the front door.  I haven't had any issues.  

 

[chrisc]

Best smoker I've had.  Hope you got it.  Temp control is second to none and hold a tons of meat.

 

[chitownsmoker99]

I did a bunch of research on the Big Green Egg and the Marshal. I registered for a Chris Marks class at the end of this past summer to see the good one in action.

I needed a smoker this spring and couldnt wait for the class so I bought a BGE. I get a great end product on the BGE, but it is a hassle constantly monitoring the temps. You can smoke for hours at a certain temp and for no reason the temps spike up 100 degrees. There is a lot of work using a BGE.

Fast fwd to the august class, I watched Chris Marks on the smoker and asked him 100 questions and I instantly regretted buying the BGE and not the Marshal. I have made the decision to buy the Marshal this spring. Im going to keep the BGE so I can smoke different meats on the same day. I like to smoke my brisket with different woods compared to ribs and butts. I would not have bought the XL had I known I was going to buy the Marshal.

Anyone thinking about buying a Good one, Im sold after watching it in use.

 

[cuebiz]

I purchased my Marshall in Sep. I couldn't be happier! Temperature adjustments are very responsive and easy. I've cooked a LOT of meat for parties and tournaments that we hold at our business.

I used to do this with a 22" WSM with DigiQ, that worked very well, but it it much easier doing this much at a time without removing the top grate to get to the bottom great in the WSM. The WSM is still a TOP OF THE LINE cooker. Last week I did 4 Turkeys for Thanksgiving parties. 2 for my son and girlfriends family, and 2 for another friend and his family. That would have been much harder to do without the capacity of the Marshall. I just traded phones and apparently I lost some of my pics, or don't know how to recover them, otherwise I would have posted some. It was windy for that turkey smoke, and the Marshall had no problem with that sitting on my fenced in patio. Hope this helps anyone trying to make the decision to buy The Good One Smoker. I purchased mine through Firecraft. I've bought from them before and they are great people. Dave

 

[chitownsmoker99]

I have all but made my mind up on the Marshal, being up here in the Midwest I will be ordering mine in the spring. Pro's and con's if any???

 

[mike5051]

That Marshal looks like a quality product!

Mike

 

[lonesmoker]

Hi All.  I'm new here too and have been looking at The Good One for quite some time.  Actually was convinced I'd go this direction until I started reading about Offset Reverse Flow.  Specifically, Lang.

Given the price points of The Good One Heritage and Lang 36" Hybrid (or Deluxe), I'm torn.  Been doing the pluses and minuses and am now questioning The Good One for two reasons.

1. Metal Gauge: TGO shows 11-gauge body and 14 gauge lid which I believe translates into 1/8" and 5/64" as opposed to many other smokers have metal thickness of 3/16" to 1/4" inch. Lang is 1/4". My guess is less thickness equals worse temp control.
2. Maintenance: Not sure if TGO has a grease drain. I know Lang does which looks like the cleanup would be much easier. Nothing worse than struggling to clean a nasty grill/smoker.

The reality is when doing research on many of the nicer models, the true guts of the smokers aren't shown which makes it difficult to figure out these finer points. I am also in CA and not a lot of places sell higher-end models to physically see.

Any input is appreciated!

Thanks

Kevin