The first time I made this bread I felt the same way. I was doing everything by hand and the first phase of dough (without the salt) felt almost complete and the additional flour was hard to incorporate. I found it easier when I kind of broke up the pieces of dough to make it more shaggy looking. Then I was able to incorporate the dry flour a lot more easily with hand kneading. I was also fearful I was overworking it since we aren't going for a windowpane or anything. I also went forward and found the bread was amazing and flavorful. For me, when I was doing the folds and feeling the dough strengthening but it was still becoming smooth I didn't feel like it was overworked. 30 minutes is a while but you might consider just folding it one or two times less if the dough feels strong enough and is rising again nicely. My dough never looked as slack as hers in the pictures but mine also had a higher rise so it just depends.

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