node js elasticsearch requests with compression headers are rejected

I'm using node js elasticsearch library and I'm indexing items. I'm trying to compress the traffic to Elasticsearch by adding a gzip header like so:

    elasticClient.index({
        body: body,
        index: index,
        type: type,
        id: id,
        headers: {
            'Content-Encoding': 'gzip'
        }
    }, function (err, resp) {

    });

Without the gzip header the request works fine, but when I include it I get a socket hang up. I've read that there is an elasticsearch configuration http.compression: true, but if I understood correctly, it refers to compression of ES responses and not to requests. Is there anything I can do to compress my requests? Thanks.

via Mister_L