Working at high values of lignocellulosic Dry Matter (DM), as wheat straw, increases the reaction medium viscosity, making the mixing inefficient with the traditional agitators. Batch and fed-batch tests were conducted using different impellers: i) inclined blades, ii) marine impeller, iii) anchor, iv) paravisc and v) double helical impeller. Inclined blades appeared an inadequate device for batch and fed-batch tests. On contrary, double helical impellers and anchor gave optimal performances. An alternative to improve the reactor's rheology is the modification of the feeding strategy. A particular fed-batch strategy allowed keeping low the reaction medium viscosity by a gradual increasing of the DM content in the reactor. In this way, three main benefits were achieved: i) a very good performances in terms of glucose concentration (85 g/L), ii) a strong reduction of the energetic consumption compared to batch test and iii) the adoption of a simple mixing devise. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.