diff --git a/core/blockchain.go b/core/blockchain.go
index 0406f7a472..cf8cf5987c 100644
--- a/core/blockchain.go
+++ b/core/blockchain.go
@@ -133,8 +133,8 @@ type CacheConfig struct {
 	TrieTimeLimit       time.Duration // Time limit after which to flush the current in-memory trie to disk
 	SnapshotLimit       int           // Memory allowance (MB) to use for caching snapshot entries in memory
 	Preimages           bool          // Whether to store preimage of trie key to the disk
-	AllowForceUpdate    bool          // Enable to force snapshots based on commit counts
-	CommitThreshold     int           // Number of commits to force a root snapshot
+	AllowForceUpdate    bool          // Enable to force root snapshots based on the configured commits threshold
+	CommitThreshold     int           // Threshold of commits to force a root snapshot update
 
 	SnapshotWait bool // Wait for snapshot construction on startup. TODO(karalabe): This is a dirty hack for testing, nuke it
 }
diff --git a/core/state/snapshot/difflayer.go b/core/state/snapshot/difflayer.go
index c25984baa9..220b8edeba 100644
--- a/core/state/snapshot/difflayer.go
+++ b/core/state/snapshot/difflayer.go
@@ -76,7 +76,7 @@ var (
 	bloomAccountHasherOffset  = 0
 	bloomStorageHasherOffset  = 0
 
-	// Count for number of commits before fore disk root update
+	// Count for number of commits before forcing disk root update
 	defaultCommitThreshold = 128
 )
 
diff --git a/core/state/snapshot/snapshot.go b/core/state/snapshot/snapshot.go
index 4047797287..06259b76e2 100644
--- a/core/state/snapshot/snapshot.go
+++ b/core/state/snapshot/snapshot.go
@@ -153,8 +153,8 @@ type Config struct {
 	Recovery         bool // Indicator that the snapshots is in the recovery mode
 	ReBuild          bool // Indicator that the snapshots generation is disallowed
 	AsyncBuild       bool // The snapshot generation is allowed to be constructed asynchronously
-	AllowForceUpdate bool // Enable forcing snap root generation on a commit count
-	CommitThreshold  int  // Number of commit after which to attempt snap root update
+	AllowForceUpdate bool // Enable to force root snapshots based on the configured commits threshold
+	CommitThreshold  int  // Threshold of commits to force a root snapshot update
 }
 
 // sanitize checks the provided user configurations and changes anything that's
@@ -163,7 +163,7 @@ func (c *Config) sanitize() Config {
 	conf := *c
 
 	if conf.CommitThreshold == 0 {
-		log.Warn("Sanitizing invalid commit threshold to default", "defaultThreshold", defaultCommitThreshold)
+		log.Warn("Sanitizing commit threshold", "provided", conf.CommitThreshold, "updated", defaultCommitThreshold)
 		conf.CommitThreshold = defaultCommitThreshold
 	}
 	return conf
@@ -198,12 +198,10 @@ type Tree struct {
 // continuous with disk layer or the journal is missing, all diffs will be discarded
 // iff it's in "recovery" mode, otherwise rebuild is mandatory.
 func New(config Config, diskdb ethdb.KeyValueStore, triedb *trie.Database, root common.Hash) (*Tree, error) {
-	// apply default to config and fix invalid values
-	conf := config.sanitize()
 
 	// Create a new, empty snapshot tree
 	snap := &Tree{
-		config: conf,
+		config: config.sanitize(),
 		diskdb: diskdb,
 		triedb: triedb,
 		cache:  config.CacheSize,