Is my biga supposed to be liquid?

I'm trying my hand at Ciabatta bread and have just made the biga in preparation for making the bread tomorrow.

I followed this recipe, which calls for the following proportion of ingredients for the biga:

250g/9oz Italian type '00' bread flour

190ml/7fl oz water

15g/½oz yeast

and the preparation (emphasis mine):

For the overnight preparation, mix the flour with the water in a large bowl and add the yeast. Whisk for three minutes and leave to rise overnight (or at least eight hours).

I measured out the ingredients using the metric quantities and mixed as per the instructions, but my biga turned out to be much too solid and dough-like to whisk:

I measured out the weight of flour with a scale and the water with a liquid measuring cup and used bread flour.

Looking at another recipe, I see the same proportion of dry to wet ingredients:

4 ounce (1/2 cup) water

1/2 teaspoon active-dry yeast

5 ounce (1 cup) all-purpose flour

Dissolve the yeast in the water. Add the flour and stir to form a thick, gloppy paste. Give it a good fifty or so brisk stirs to build up the gluten. Cover and let sit at room temperature eight hours or overnight.

This one also has a flour:water ratio of 2:1 and indicates that the result should be a gloppy paste. Surely more water is needed in order to get this kind of consistency? Is a more solid consistency okay or did I do something wrong?