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Liquid hot (LHW) water pretreatment (LHW) of lignocellulosic material enhances enzymatic conversion of cellulose to glucose by solubilizing hemicellulose fraction of the biomass, while leaving the cellulose more reactive and accessible to cellulase enzymes. Within the range of pretreatment conditions tested in this study, the optimized LHW pretreatment conditions for a 15% (wt/vol) slurry of hybrid poplar were found to be 200^oC, 10 min, which resulted in the highest fermentable sugar yield with minimal formation of sugar decomposition products during the pretreatment. The LHW pretreatment solubilized 62% of hemicellulose as soluble oligomers. Hot‐washing of the pretreated poplar slurry increased the efficiency of hydrolysis by doubling the yield of glucose for a given enzyme dose. The 15% (wt/vol) slurry of hybrid poplar, pretreated at the optimal conditions and hot‐washed, resulted in 54% glucose yield by …