The development of standard methods for the assessment of cellulosic feedstocks for biofuel production is important to allow accurate comparisons of feedstocks across research groups.  In this study we discuss current efforts to develop a standard pretreatment methodology for assessing the susceptibility of feedstocks to pretreatment for hydrolyzing structural sugars. We investigated the applicability of an Automated Solvent Extractor (Dionex Corp., model ASE350) for conducting bench scale batch pretreatment experiments.  The ASE350 was selected for this research because it is a commercially available system, is fully automated, has the ability to run 24 samples sequentially, and has the possibility to carry out solid-liquid separation, a time consuming step in biomass analysis.   Dilute sulfuric acid pretreatment was carried out on corn stover as a method to asses the significant operating factors of the ASE350, as well as explore the region of greatest feedstock response to pretreatment.  A factorial designed experiment was used to determine the effect of time, temperature, acid concentration, flush volume, rinse volume, and other equipment operating parameters on xylose yield from pretreatment, which is one indicator of pretreatment efficacy under dilute acid conditions.  We report on the relative effects of ASE350 operating parameters on xylose yield in pretreatment, as well as the reproducibility of the equipment and processes.  Results showed that temperature and acid concentration had the greatest effect on xylose yield, while flush volume and purge time did not impact yields.