Baking – Can i refrigerate bread doughs twice before baking

An even, dense crumb is going to be partly developed by the kneading process (and partly by the low moisture). If you want that character in the final loaf, the method probably can't change too much. You should be able to develop some gluten by leaving it to sit a few extra hours. However, this type of passive development lends itself more to an uneven, airy crumb. So it's a trade-off between some longer, passive time with possibility of a slightly different texture resulting or shorter, active time. I guess it depends what your priority is -- ease of making or character of the loaf.

There are also compounds that can increase gluten production and are not uncommon in commercial breads. Using a bit of fava bean or soy bean flour can apparently facilitate the gluten production in a more natural way, but I have no idea how much you need to add nor how it will affect flavour.

I recommend reading this nice explanation about gluten development.

Besides the initial gluten relaxing that mrwienerdog wrote about, another important effect is the absorption of liquid.

It takes time for the flour to fully hydrate with the available liquid. Before it does the dough will be more sticky and there will be less gluten available for kneading. Giving the recently incorporated dough a short rest allows the flour to pull in all the liquid it can and become much easier to work with.

A similar effect can be seen with pastry doughs. Even though often the goal is to minimize gluten development, a short rest gives the flour time to hydrate and can turn pastry dough from difficult to work and crumbly to soft and smooth.