Cocoa (Theobroma cacao) is one of the commodity crops in different ecological regions from the Mekong Delta to the Central Highlands of Vietnam. The high content of cellulose present in the pod is strongly considerable for the hydrolysis process by diluting acid into fermentable sugar. The aim of this study was to investigate the fermentation capacity from hydrolysate of cocoa pods. The hydrolysate was prepared with HCl 0.75M at 90^°C in 8 hours. The cocoa pod hydrolysate (glucose concentration was 7.22% w/v) was examined for the ability of bio-ethanol production by four strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae (YB3K, VVD3, BKD4, 2.1) with the initial inoculation levels at 10², 10⁴, 10⁶, 10⁷ cells/mL. The fermenting medium was tested with the glucose content in a range of 4, 5, 6, and 7% (w/v) and pH value at 4.5, 5.0, 5.5 and 6.0. The fermentation conditions were designed at different temperatures (25, 30, 37^°C) and times (3, 5, 7 and 9 days). The finding results showed that the suitable yeast strain for ethanol fermentation was Saccharomyces cerevisiae VVD3 with the inoculation level at 10⁶ cells/mL. The ethanol concentration of 5.14% was achieved when fermenting cocoa pod hydrolysate for 7 days at 30^°C and pH at 5.5. The glucose consumption efficiency could be able to reach up 97.6%. These outputs indicated the promising feasibility of ethanol production from such waste material source of cocoa pods.