This may be old news, but I recently discovered that thesecret to storing a Sawyer Squeeze (or Mini) filter is to store it wet, that is, full of distilled water. Whenever I've stored mine dry or wet with tap water, I've had to do the repeated soak-and-backflush routine. Not this time...it worked first time.

Forgot to mention that in order to keep the distilled water contained, I used a couple of vinyl caps from the hardware store, along with an adapter from the Sawyer accessory kit. The Mini just needs one cap, since one is built in.