> I see a lot of recipes recommending autolyse in both bread and pizza. I'm not sure I understand what the benefit is in a recipe which is already high hydration and has a long rest.
I am not an expert, but I make bread a few times a month, and mix by hand. Here's my mental model: (it's roughly as scientific as a lumberjack who has fairies who tell him which way the tree wants to fall, so YMMV)
The gluten wants to form straight chains. That's it's lowest energy state. If you make a wet poulish and just let it sit, the molecules can rotate slightly to find that low energy state, and you get some nice long chains that form with no work.
If you make a dry dough and mix it right away, you are constantly breaking and reorienting those glutens, and the molecules can't "feel" the fields where they are at the lowest energy. Essentially, the kinetic energy you are adding is so much greater than the subtle push and pull of the other molecules that you end up connecting the glutens together in a much more random way. You get kinky chains instead of straight ones.
It's a little like a crystal forming in a solution... if you let it sit, the molecules will find their nice crystalline structure. If you put it in the blender, you'll just get a crystal puree.
One thing that has changed about my breadmaking over the years, is that I used to think the earliest steps didn't matter as much, because it all gets kneaded, then punched down, kneaded some more, formed, etc. I thought the structure all happens during the final formation and rise. But now I think about the structure of the dough from the very first moment the water meets the flour. I think of every single time I touch the dough, every single stretch and fold as part of the final structure of the loaf.