Two Birds, One Fan: Can Breezo Fix Uneven Chicken Temps on a Charcoal Grill?

Chicken grilled over charcoal is one of life’s purest pleasures. So much so that people debate which is better: the white meat of the breast or the dark meat of the thigh and drumstick.

The problem is these two pieces of poultry cook differently, and it’s all too easy to overcook one while undercooking the other. The key to grilling chicken breast and thigh meat correctly requires thoughtful placement with consistent airflow for temperature control. Something that I’ve been challenged with in the past with my old, budget-priced charcoal barrel grill.

Luckily, I’m partnered with ChefsTemp, which offers an innovative lineup of grilling equipment and thermometers. So, I decided to see if the new Breezo temperature controller fan and the ChefsTemp ProTemp S1 could help me take on the challenge of properly roasting chicken thighs and breast together.

To prove the devil hides in the details, we’ll spatchcock one broiler-fryer chicken and roast one side old-school with just charcoal. I’ll give the fire and placement my best guess and a quick check with the ChefsTemp X10 instant-read thermometer.

Then we’ll roast a second side of the bird, with the Breezo helping us control the airflow and the ChefsTemp ProTemp S1 helping us track the temperatures of the chicken breast and thigh simultaneously.

Let’s try it out and see what the data says.

Part 1. The Science of Chicken: A Biological Paradox

When it was alive, the chicken’s thigh and drumstick did a lot of work walking around and scratching in the dirt. This built dense muscle and connective tissue, which need time over medium-low heat on the grill to render collagen and make the meat succulently tender. This usually happens at a minimum temperature of around 175 degrees.

Whereas the white meat of the chicken breast didn’t do much. It just followed the genetics of selective breeding to grow large with a lot of fast-twitch, tender muscle and very little fat. As a result, chicken breast is done at around 165 degrees. After that, there’s a real risk of the breast meat ending up dry and stringy.

We also have to consider the chicken skin that protectively covers both pieces of meat. It also adds fat and helps preserve moisture, which we need to keep the breast meat from drying out.

In the end, the skin on the chicken breast and thigh needs to be crisp, but not like biting into shattering glass, without being rubbery. This too requires a level of finesse in how you render the fat before crisping the skin at the end.

Part 2. The Gear Setup: Mastering the Airflow and Temperature Monitoring

The ChefsTemp Breezo V2 BBQ Temperature Control Fan isn’t a typical fan; it’s an automated, precision temperature controller that pairs with the ChefsTemp app on your smartphone. It was originally meant to fit seamlessly with the lower damper of a kamado grill like the Big Green Egg or Kamado Joe, but it will also fit the lower port of many barrel grills like mine.

By mechanically controlling the oxygen fueling the fire, the ChefsTemp Breezo transforms most charcoal grills into convection ovens. It provides a rock-steady, consistent flow of air throughout your entire grilling session.

In the case of my charcoal grill, which I know has airflow issues, the Breezo provides consistent heating. It’s a little bit like a convection oven effect for the charcoal.

This precision airflow and temperature control is the secret weapon for achieving that elusive, perfectly crisped chicken skin, without wild temperature fluctuations. The consistency also makes it much easier to time the doneness relationship between the chicken breast and thigh meat.

 ChefsTemp ProTemp S1 Telling Both Sides of the Poultry Story

When it comes to grilling a spatchcocked chicken, it’s best to track the temperature of the chicken breast and the thigh simultaneously. A single probe only tells half the story, and an instant-read probe thermometer will have you puncturing the meat so much it lets all the juices out.

This is where the leave-in probes of the ChefsTemp ProTemp S1 system are the perfect tool for the job. It gives you a precise reading of the ambient temperature inside the grill while simultaneously monitoring the thermal race between the chicken breast and the thigh. This also helps me know when it’s time to flip the chicken over the flames to crisp the skin.

The ChefsTemp App

Now, I’ve reviewed plenty of grilling tech for other publications over the years. Including a bunch of apps that feel like they were coded in 2005 by a guy who knew he was going to quit his job the next day.

The ChefsTemp app, honestly, is a different beast. It’s intuitive, clean, and doesn’t glitch in the middle of a grilling session, which is especially important when you’re grilling two different cuts of chicken.

Part 3. The Grilling Technique

I like to use a hybrid grilling technique to cook chicken breasts and thighs at the same time. This calls for setting up a modest charcoal fire in one half of the firebox and laying the chicken, skin-side up, just off the heat. This keeps the flames from burning the bottom of the meat. If I’m in the mood to punch up the smoky flavor, this arrangement makes it easy to drop a couple of chunks of applewood or wood pellets.

For bone-in chicken like this, I like a target temperature of around 300-350 degrees. While I wouldn’t technically call this “Slow-and-Low,” keeping the temperature under 350 degrees gives the fat in the skin plenty of time to render. It also gives the tough collagen connective tissues in the thighs the time to render into juicy gelatin.

This is the target temperature I used for both the control chicken and the chicken roasted with the Breezo.

Installing the Breezo

The ChefsTemp Breezo was designed to install seamlessly with standard Kamado grills. Yet it’s also versatile enough to attach to a wide range of kettle and barrel grills. I honestly thought I was going to bellyache my way through the install of my barrel grill’s dial damper, but the spring-loaded clip made it easy.

The key is to get a good seal at the damper using the heat-resistant flue tape included with the kit. If you need more in the future, it’s pretty easy to find at most hardware stores.

How to Insert Probe Thermometers into Chicken Breast and Thigh

Proper probe placement is critical for monitoring the internal temperature of chicken breast and thigh while it’s on the grill.

For the chicken breast, insert the probe into the thickest part. Make sure the tip is near the center mass of the breast meat without actually touching any bones. All four sensors need to be deep within the muscle to accurately measure the internal temperature without being skewed by the grill’s ambient heat.

For the chicken thigh, insert the probe into the thickest section of the meat. With a ChefsTemp multi-sensor probe, make sure the entire sensor array is submerged to the little black line.

Pro Tip: Don’t let the tip of the probe touch the thigh bone, as bone conducts heat differently than meat, giving you a false reading.

Part 4. The Experiment

For both chickens, I powered up the ChefsTemp ProTemp S1 Hub. I opened the ChefsTemp app on my phone with Bluetooth enabled. It took just a few seconds for the app to automatically detect the base station, and I connected it.

Placing the Chicken on the Grill Grates

I like to position the chicken with the thigh closest to the flames to give it slightly more thermal energy it needs. The ChefsTemp ProTemp S1 Hub lets me monitor how the chicken breast and thigh meat are heating up. Ideally, you want to see them staying within 10 to 15 degrees of each other throughout the grilling process.

Monitoring the Temperature

If you see the temperature of the chicken breast dipping more than 15 degrees below the probe thermometer’s reading in the thigh, simply rotate the spatchcocked bird 90 degrees. Turn it wing-side toward the flames, to give the breast a little buffer against burning.

I waited for the breast and thigh meat to reach within 5 degrees of their final temperatures, 165 and 175 degrees, respectively. Then I gently flipped the spatchcocked chicken directly over the flames to crisp the skin and mark it.

Checking the Final Temp

The ChefsTemp app closely monitors the probes and alerts me when they’ve reached the targeted doneness temperature. Then, for good measure, I spot-check the breast and thigh with the ChefsTemp Final Touch X10.

Then I slipped it into the ChefsTemp Professional BBQ Resting Blanket. Five minutes inside this washable insulated pouch give the meat fibers time to relax and reabsorb fat and natural juices. This ensures the meat is moist and the smoky flavor saturates every bite.

Cook Time for Both Methods

With the control chicken grilled using only the S1 Hub for temperature monitoring, the breast and thigh took 2 hours and 28 minutes to cook safely, with crispy skin.

With the Breezo helping regulate the heat, the chicken reached safe internal temperatures in the breast and thigh in 1 hour and 43 minutes.

Saved by the Bell

There was a moment right toward the end of this grilling session where the ChefsTemp S1 really proved itself. I’d just flipped the chicken, skin-side down, over the charcoal to add some grill marks and finish the crisp skin.

A few minutes later, the app dings with a high heat warning. I ran out to the grill and saw that a little rendered chicken fat had dripped onto the charcoal, causing a flare-up. I was able to save it before the bird was reduced to a charred shell!

The Comparison Results & Conclusion

Comparing the chicken cooked on my breezy grill alone as the control to the chicken cooked with the Breezo, which transforms the grill into a smoky convection oven, revealed some important differences.

Temperature Control

When it comes to temperature control, the ambient heat of the charcoal with the Breezo was more consistent. It tended to rebound much more easily after I opened the lid to take pictures for this article.

Cook Time

The time it took to grill the chicken breast and thigh to a safe internal temperature on the control bird took 2 hours and 28 minutes. This included the time it took to flip the bird and crisp the skin, which I think is also an important factor. It’s also worth noting that this longer cook time meant I had to reload a small handful of charcoal because the original coal bed was burning out.

Whereas the chicken grilled with the ChefsTemp Breezo’s convection effect took 1 hour and 43 minutes. This might not seem like a big deal at first, but it could come in handy if you’re hungry for grilled chicken for a weeknight supper.

The Crispy Skin

The control chicken had some areas where the skin was nicely crisp, and other areas where it was still a little rubbery. I could have left the chicken flipped over the coals for another 5-10 minutes to remedy this, but the breast meat would have been way over and been dry.

The chicken grilled with the Breezo was uniformly crisp thanks to the convection oven effect. Even the areas that weren’t affected by the minor flare-up were perfectly crisp.

Smokiness

One of the things that honestly surprised me with the Breezo was just how much more smoke it produced. It added a noticeable extra hit of smoky flavor to the meat.

Bottom line on the ChefsTemp Breezo

The ChefsTemp Breezo grilled the chicken breast and thigh to a safe degree of doneness sooner than the control chicken did. It also gave the meat a little smokier flavor and a uniformly crispy skin.

I’m not going to over-promise Breezo as the ultimate game changer that will shift your thinking on grilled chicken forever. I do think it puts grilled chicken on the weeknight supper menu with the consistency that lets you do other things while trusting ChefsTemp to take care of the coals.