Thanks for easing my concerns.Hi @kreikrei ! No, I do not recommend presoaking a 5 gallon container for that would just be too much water for the young seedling to deal with. I also don't recommend 3 weeks before getting to the point that you can water normally. I recommend spraying water at the seedling for only the first few days, until it stops floating around, and then I recommend watering in a circle around the plant, out to 3x its diameter. Within a week or so, your plant should be big enough to be giving quite a bit of water to the plant and very soon watering the entire container to runoff.
It is not necessary to do anything special to keep the soil from becoming hydrophobic. You know what cures hydrophobic? Water. You do not have to do anything with hydrophobic soil other than water slowly, and as it soaks up the water it will cease to be hydrophobic. You are also not considering that when you water, even while you are not watering to runoff, any excess water that is not being sucked up by your plant, is wetting that soil in an ever widening circle, and gravity still works, so that extra water tends to fall down in to the bottom of the container. All you need to do is slowly ramp up your watering as the plant gets bigger, and they hydrophobic problem will solve itself.
Also keep in mind that starting in your final container has never been my recommendation. You can avoid all of these problems by starting off in small cups and working your way into the final container through successive uppotting. This thread is trying to show you a way to avoid many of the pitfalls of starting in a large container, but it certainly isn't the optimum way of growing a weed, even an auto.
Your elaborations on the small detals of your watering method made it more clear to me and that I shouldnt worry as much as I do.
Keep on trucking!