diff --git a/runner/sidecar/sink/kafka/kafka.go b/runner/sidecar/sink/kafka/kafka.go
index e0af749f..ecb0cd06 100644
--- a/runner/sidecar/sink/kafka/kafka.go
+++ b/runner/sidecar/sink/kafka/kafka.go
@@ -3,6 +3,7 @@ package kafka
 import (
 	"context"
 	"fmt"
+	"math"
 	"time"
 
 	dfv1 "github.com/argoproj-labs/argo-dataflow/api/v1alpha1"
@@ -12,7 +13,6 @@ import (
 	kafka "github.com/confluentinc/confluent-kafka-go/kafka"
 	"github.com/opentracing/opentracing-go"
 	"github.com/prometheus/client_golang/prometheus"
-	"github.com/prometheus/client_golang/prometheus/promauto"
 	"k8s.io/apimachinery/pkg/util/wait"
 	corev1 "k8s.io/client-go/kubernetes/typed/core/v1"
 )
@@ -26,23 +26,7 @@ type kafkaSink struct {
 	async    bool
 }
 
-var kafkaMessagesProducedSuccess, kafkaMessagesProducedErr *prometheus.CounterVec
-
-func init() {
-	// track async success and errors
-	kafkaMessagesProducedSuccess = promauto.NewCounterVec(prometheus.CounterOpts{
-		Subsystem: "sinks",
-		Name:      "kafka_produced_successes",
-		Help:      "Number of messages successfully produced to Kafka",
-	}, []string{"sinkName"})
-	kafkaMessagesProducedErr = promauto.NewCounterVec(prometheus.CounterOpts{
-		Subsystem: "sinks",
-		Name:      "kafka_produce_errors",
-		Help:      "Number of errors while producing messages to Kafka",
-	}, []string{"sinkName"})
-}
-
-func New(ctx context.Context, sinkName string, secretInterface corev1.SecretInterface, x dfv1.KafkaSink) (sink.Interface, error) {
+func New(ctx context.Context, sinkName string, secretInterface corev1.SecretInterface, x dfv1.KafkaSink, errorsCounter prometheus.Counter) (sink.Interface, error) {
 	logger := logger.WithValues("sink", sinkName)
 	config, err := sharedkafka.GetConfig(ctx, secretInterface, x.KafkaConfig)
 	if err != nil {
@@ -58,6 +42,9 @@ func New(ctx context.Context, sinkName string, secretInterface corev1.SecretInte
 	config["compression.type"] = x.CompressionType
 	config["acks"] = x.GetAcks()
 	config["enable.idempotence"] = x.EnableIdempotence
+	if x.Async { // this is meant to be set by `enable.idempotence` automatically, but I'm not sure it is
+		config["retries"] = math.MaxInt32
+	}
 
 	logger.Info("kafka config", "config", sharedutil.MustJSON(sharedkafka.RedactConfigMap(config)))
 
@@ -80,9 +67,7 @@ func New(ctx context.Context, sinkName string, secretInterface corev1.SecretInte
 			case *kafka.Message:
 				if err := ev.TopicPartition.Error; err != nil {
 					logger.Error(err, "Async to Kafka failed", "topic", x.Topic)
-					kafkaMessagesProducedErr.WithLabelValues(sinkName).Inc()
-				} else {
-					kafkaMessagesProducedSuccess.WithLabelValues(sinkName).Inc()
+					errorsCounter.Inc()
 				}
 			}
 		}
diff --git a/runner/sidecar/sinks.go b/runner/sidecar/sinks.go
index c2174c5e..6531371b 100644
--- a/runner/sidecar/sinks.go
+++ b/runner/sidecar/sinks.go
@@ -46,7 +46,7 @@ func connectSinks(ctx context.Context) (func(context.Context, []byte) error, fun
 				return nil, nil, err
 			}
 		} else if x := s.Kafka; x != nil {
-			if sink, err = kafka.New(ctx, sinkName, secretInterface, *x); err != nil {
+			if sink, err = kafka.New(ctx, sinkName, secretInterface, *x, errorsCounter.WithLabelValues(sinkName, fmt.Sprint(replica), fmt.Sprint(s.DeadLetterQueue))); err != nil {
 				return nil, nil, err
 			}
 		} else if x := s.Log; x != nil {
diff --git a/test/kafka-e2e/kafka_test.go b/test/kafka-e2e/kafka_test.go
index adb8c69c..dca5beab 100644
--- a/test/kafka-e2e/kafka_test.go
+++ b/test/kafka-e2e/kafka_test.go
@@ -77,8 +77,6 @@ func TestKafkaAsync(t *testing.T) {
 	WaitForTotalSourceMessages(17)
 	WaitForTotalSunkMessages(17)
 
-	ExpectMetric("sinks_kafka_produced_successes", Eq(17))
-
 	DeletePipelines()
 	WaitForPodsToBeDeleted()
 }
@@ -116,8 +114,6 @@ func TestKafkaMultipleSink(t *testing.T) {
 	WaitForTotalSourceMessages(17)
 	WaitForTotalSunkMessages(17)
 
-	ExpectMetric("sinks_kafka_produced_successes", Eq(17))
-
 	DeletePipelines()
 	WaitForPodsToBeDeleted()
 }