diff --git a/docs/index.rst b/docs/index.rst
index 50b08bf..d608520 100755
--- a/docs/index.rst
+++ b/docs/index.rst
@@ -223,6 +223,7 @@ instantiation, like this::
 
 From version 0.5.2 onwards, you can also control the buffer size for the I/O between
 ``gpg`` and ``python-gnupg`` by setting the ``buffer_size`` attribute on a GPG instance.
+It defaults to 16K.
 
 .. versionadded:: 0.5.2
    The ``buffer_size`` attribute was added.
diff --git a/gnupg.py b/gnupg.py
index b04e204..cd184a2 100644
--- a/gnupg.py
+++ b/gnupg.py
@@ -1013,7 +1013,7 @@ class GPG(object):
 
     decode_errors = 'strict'
 
-    buffer_size = 1024  # override in instance if needed
+    buffer_size = 16384  # override in instance if needed
 
     result_map = {
         'crypt': Crypt,