Follow-ups

1. Remember Portola's wafflegato? Last time I wrote that variations on that theme were expected. Indeed, there have been two so far. See below for the recipes.

- a. Featuring organic goat's milk caramel, salted caramel gelato, and aleppo pepper seasoning

- b. Incorporating peach gelato, peach balsamic, the return of the Dauphinoise, and Murray River sea salt

If I absolutely had to choose, I'd get my goat on with (a). You?

2. A while back, I briefly dabbled in sieving ground coffee as a way to quantify grind consistency. I hadn't thought about sieves for months until I read that this year's Brewers Cup champion, Matt Perger (of Australia), relied on one during his winning routine. Specifically, he used a 250-micron sieve to filter the ground coffee he brewed, allowing him to downdose somewhat and still extract tastily at a higher-than-usual percentage in the absence of fines. Click here for details, including a video link. Perger seems to have already piqued the curiosity of Intelligentsia's Jesse Raub, who's been tweeting about his informal sieving experiments. Should be interesting to follow.

3. Coming soon to a blog near you: Memoirs of a Geisha *revisited*. My 8-oz. tin of Bird Rock's Finca Cerro Azul arrived today and made a very nice first impression (brewed Trifecta-style on B-:45). Next I'll get out the Beehouse and try a pourover cup with this coffee as I imitate Ceremony's Andy Sprenger. To be continued...