Laminates starting to comply

Objective today was to improve on some former efforts to achieve a more open crumb with croissants etc. Unfortunately as i began dough prep last night I was almost out of the flour I have been using and, have discovered works nicely for the lamination process (francine bio t55). This makes a really great dough that glutenizes beaitifully just not a great bread flour as its missing some af the additives (malts etc) - this is straight flour at about 9.4% protein. So only having about 250g left for a 500g batch I, added the other 250 as gold medal AP. Once time came to start the rolling process I was met with much more resistance than accustomed and ended up (as is fairly visible in the photos) with only two single folds. I am sure with more resting time resistence would diminish bit at the same time I had been curious to see how things migh develop with only 9 layers as opposed to 12 which is sort of standard (one book and one single fold). The results were indeed some very heavy layers but thats ok for this experiment. The objective was to work on crumb structure and after careful thought and observation of yeast activity I decided that in order to avoid overproofing, I would allow about twice the time on final that I would with a regular loaf - this based on observation of activity etc. It appears to me that this particular recipe (despite having 7-8 times the yeast) develops about half as fast as straight bread. I am also fairly confident that the crumb development is similar to that of bread whereby layers expand because gas trapped in the dough is creating bubbles that push the layers apart and, in some areas together. Despite popular opinion that suggests the butter is vaporizing and blowing the layers apart this makes no sense to me. This seems impossible as even if the butter vaporized the gas would immediately evacuate to the atmosphere by way of the dough edges. So it must be that croissants form an open crumb exactly as bread does - via co2 bubbles expanding. And, since I have long been able to get bread to pop, i decided to follow suit with laminates. About all I know is that if I develop decent gluten, perform a long cold retard, control keep yeast activity to a minimum for a long period and then blast the final shapes after a short proof, then usually an open crumb develops. It definitely seems the case here. Despite some dense middle sections these are showing signs of opening decently. Yes they are very heavy croissants with few layers but overall I am pleased to see improvement. The other thing to note is that anytime trying to master a product, it helps to use the same ingredients each time. So far I really like president unsalted butter - this seems a good plasticity. For dough I avoid milk and go with all h20, no eggs and instead extra butter. Other egg and milk-based doughs as too gummy for my liking. So as of now it looks like more flour needs to go on order but in case any other croissant enthusiasts are struggling with structure, I thought I would post this as an interesting experiment and hopefully it can help with understanding how this particular product works :)