No, it won’t curdle! Heating the cream before adding the grapefruit juice helps prevent that.

Oh yes, the microplane is so versatile. I’m a pretty serious minimalist all over the house, but especially in the kitchen. I use my microplane for zest, cheese, spices, ginger, etc!

Thanks for mentioning the microplane.  I don’t think about using it for zesting, because I have a specific zester.  However, I think I would be better off just using the microplane because I’m often not happy with the size of the zest pieces when I use the zester.  And chopping them is a pain.  I just finished a class on having a minimalist kitchen, where the idea is to get rid of excess things we don’t use.  The zester is perhaps something I don’t need to keep.  I really appreciate it when people help me to see more clearly.

Yes! I absolutely judge restaurants on their creme brulee, particularly the crispness of the sugar on top. If they can’t torch it correctly, I question why they’re serving it at all.

I used zest that was grated very finely with a microplane, because I stirred the zest in AFTER the custard had been strained, because I wanted to make sure it had lots of grapefruit flavor. You could absolutely use long pieces of zest if you were planning to strain them out after steeping for a bit.