Part of what gives an espresso machine its personality, is the dimensions of the parts inside the group head. Most pro espresso machines use 58mm baskets, for instance, which give a certain relationship between height and width of the coffee puck.

In the same way, how far the shower screen pushed down into the basket is a key part of the personality of that machine. The placement of the shower screen effects how much empty space, called headspace, there is above the puck, for a given amount of coffee in the basket. If you put more coffee in the basket, that empty space will diminish. If you use a 17g dose in a 15g basket, you will have much less air space above the puck, than if you put that same 17g into an 18g basket.

Headspace in espresso refers to the empty vertical gap between the top of the compressed coffee puck and the shower screen inside the group head.

Yes, you can change the headspace by using a different basket size for your dose, or by using a spacer.

When we were designing the DE1, we asked forum members on HomeBarista.com to measure the shower screen placement of their machine. They did this by putting untamped coffee into a basket, locking the portafilter in, then out, and then measuring the depth of the coffee bed in the basket.

With v1.0 DE1 machines, we went with the average depth as reported by Home Barista users. With v1.1 models, we pushed the shower screen another 4mm deeper into the basket.

Starting in 2018, users started to experiment with even deeper shower screen placement. The impetus for this was the perception that DE1 espresso had less mouthfeel (were less thick) than some traditional espresso machines.

With v1.44 machines, the headspace was finally reduced to the E61 standard. The reasoning behind this is that users can easily increase headspace by just using a larger basket for their dose.

In other words, users of v1.0 to v1.43 machines might want to use spacers to decrease headspace and, thus, get more mouthfeel.

The general consensus from testing and discussions around this topic is that spacers:

Starting with v1.44 , all Decent Espresso machines have the E61 headspace, which you don't want to reduce further. So if you have a v1.44 or newer machine, don't use a spacer. Likewise, if you upgraded your machine to the V2 group head parts, no matter your machine version, the third-party spacers presented in this documentation aren't compatible.

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