The objectives of this study were to investigate the effect of fermentation medium on the hydroxyl radical scavenging activity of exopolysaccharides from Inonotus obliquus by response surface methodology (RSM). A two-level fractional factorial design was used to evaluate the effect of different components of the medium. Corn flour, peptone, and KH2PO4 were important factors significantly affecting hydroxyl radical scavenging activity. These selected variables were subsequently optimized using path of steepest ascent (descent), a central composite design, and response surface analysis. The optimal medium composition was (% w/v): corn flour 5.30, peptone 0.32, KH2PO4 0.26, MgSO4 0.02, and CaCl2 0.01. Under the optimal condition, the hydroxyl radical scavenging rate (49.4%) was much higher than that using either basal fermentation medium (10.2%) and single variable optimization of fermentation medium (35.5%). The main monosaccharides components of the RSM optimized polysaccharides are rhamnose, arabinose, xylose, mannose, glucose, and galactose with molar proportion at 1.45%, 3.63%, 2.17%, 15.94%, 50.00%, and 26.81%. © The Korean Society for Microbiology and Biotechnology.