What’s the difference between sanitizing and sterilizing? ???? Sanitation is great for brewing but not enough when working with pure cultures or doing microbiological tests. Even if you don’t have a huge autoclave, there are alternatives that can be used to create your own small microbiological QA/QC lab. It's best practice to validate the sterilization with swab plating and other means. *Look for canning/stovetop autoclaves, that can exceed 1 bar (15psi)