No. Get the best you can afford

Thin espresso has always been a low temperature problem ime

The grinder is the most important part in what ends up in the cup; you can never have too much grinder. With either one of the grinders I mentioned and fresh beans you will get a great cup, and if you don't; it is the barista behind the portafilters fault.

Anything recommended will be for espresso. No grinder can do both espresso and non-espresso well (possibly the EK43 depending on your paradigm, but that's a different discussion).

The Baratza Vario @ $480 can do both, but it's really for espresso, unless you get steel burrs, then it's only for non-espresso. The Vario is designed for home use, and people love it for that, or hate it because of it's fiddly/plastic grind setting. But in the cup it's equal to the 64mm flat burr type grinders like the Mazzer Super Jolly, which goes for $300+ used or $750 new.

Then there's the Baratza Forte @ $900 which is the commercial version of the Vario. No better in the cup, but better build quality.

As mentioned, at the $1,000 price point you have good options, but you should research because at that price point there's burr size, burr type (conical vs. flat), on-demand vs. traditional w/ doser, etc. Even electric vs. manual. If you're going to spend that kind of money, your results in the cup will be great, but there's a lot of questions of how you want to use the grinder, the size, etc. Do you want to fill the hopper and have the grinder spit out the right dose, or are you going to change coffees frequently and thus need a grinder that suits itself to single dosing (ie putting the exact dose of beans in the empty grinder, and grinding just those beans)?

Also, since you bought a refurb machine, you can always look into a used grinder. Commercial grinders, more than espresso machines, last years without much maintenance. So buying a used Mazzer or Compak is pretty safe as long as you can give the grinder a once-over.

John

Just to be that guy...

The grinder suggestions you've gotten have been solid. Personally if it were me and I had ~1000 to get a grinder with... Mazzer Major. Should be right around 1K, might be able to find a coupon code or something. One of the most overlooked(but still well respected, its a Mazzer afterall) grinders on the market. Huge 83mm flat burrs*, it produces an espresso grind that any grinder would envy. It is comparable to other large CONICAL burr grinders, rather than smaller sized flat burr models. You can read about the differences between conical and flat until you're bored, simply by doing a quick search.
*Although exceptions exist, when it comes to burr size, bigger is usually better. In the price range you're talking about, its gonna be 99% medium to large size flat burrs. The Mazzer Major is the king of flat burr grinders. The disclaimer would be, I a major fan of the major

But, thats all well and good, however, no grinder in the world is going to make good espresso come out of the spouts, if you dont use better coffee.

Grocery Store beans, canned espresso(illy, lavazza?), and Cafe Bustelo.

The greatest wizards of the world couldnt turn that coffee into good espresso.

What you want, is coffee that is fresh roasted. Meaning, days out of the roaster. You wanna use it, before it gets to be about 14 days old. Roughly, all coffees are different. But the general 2 week=stale rule, will apply, within a day or three, to the majority of coffee you'll buy.

You might have a local roaster, or a local cafe which carries fresh roasted beans. However, I prefer to use the online ordering method. You order your coffee, its roasted to order, and shipped to you the next morning, if not the same day. There is a plethora of roasters to choose from, I encourage you to try as many as you can. List of our Favorite Roasters

RichardWalter wrote:So now this raises new questions: specifically, are there grinders that "specialize" in espresso grind and/of ones that'll work in concert better with my Bezzera BZ-10?

RJW

Ok, so espresso grinders are grinders meant for Espresso only, like the Mazzer line.. they are engineered to be extremely consistent for Espresso. Bulk grinders (like EK43, or the various Bunn store grinders) are generally geared towards being great for drip coffee.

There are two different types of Espresso grinders. Conical burrs and Flat burrs. Recently, big flat burrs have been very popular (Ceado E37s, Mahlkonig K30, Mazzer Major, Peak, Mythos One, etc). Your conicals (Mazzer Robur, Koney, Compak k10) use a conical burrset to grind the beans, it's extremely fast and cool on the beans. They each have a different flavor profile, and that's a decision you'll have to make for yourself.

I'm a fan of flat burr grinders because they offer deeper and richer tones. Conicals offer more brightness.. this is all subjective of course. That was just a quick run down and certainly not perfect. I'll leave the floor open for others to chime in.