You are correct. Probably a poor choice of wording since bloom is associated with beef and raw fresh (uncured) sausage as you describe above. Cooked, cured products should be brought down to 90-110F to prevent surface shriveling from rapid moisture loss cooling from higher temperatures. But I do think the cured/smoke color is better in the package if you stop water cooling around 100F internal and allow the product to dry as it cools to room temperature vs. showering or drenching the product to a refrigerated temperature. That was the thought I had hoped to convey.

You can try comparing seasonings by adding 1/4 teaspoon of seasoning to a 2 oz bathroom cup of warm (not hot) water, maybe 90-100F. Stir well and then taste a small amount of the tea from a spoon with lots of air across the tongue. Not exact, but will give you an idea of flavor, especially between two different seasonings. Pepperoni seasoning typically uses paprika for color with anise and fennel as the seasoning highlights. Historically it’s made from pork. If you want to try a recipe for 5 lbs of meat, 62g salt, 34g sugar, 22.7g ground mustard, 8.5g fennel seed, 4.3g ground fennel, 3.5g ground anise, 2.1g ground red pepper, 8.5g paprika. I don’t know the strength of Walton’s cure, so that would be used at whatever is recommended. Pepperoni is normally fermented, so add some encapsulated acid for tang. Commercial pepperoni is not cooked high enough to set the proteins, so there is a nutlike savoriness to rare meat that disappears when it’s fully cooked and flavor is more bland,. So a higher level of seasoning is needed to get full flavor in a fully cooked sausage. Pepperoni is dried to around 30-36% moisture. If you start with 72% pork, that is a weight loss around 35%. If you don’t take the weight loss, your yield will be higher and the seasoning flavor is diluted as a result. So if you have a higher yield you want to use more seasoning to get full flavor. You can make a nice full-flavored fully cooked pepperoni flavor refrigerated snack stick or brat, but would need a high enough seasoning level for full flavor.

The CDC made no distinction between lunchmeats sliced & packaged under USDA jurisdiction in inspected meat plants and product unwrapped and sliced at your local meat counter. The overwhelming majority of Listeria cases from luncheon meats are from meats sliced at the individual deli counter which might be inspected by local or state health department occasionally and where your slicing and sanitation people are probably making minimum wage and may or may not be trained well for their jobs.

100F internal sounds good, then let it bloom coming the rest of the way down to room temperature.

You guys probably already know, but be sure to use cooked pineapple out of the can. Raw pineapple contains bromelain, an enzyme that will tenderize the protein & make the texture mushy.

Sticks dry fastest when moisture is leaving the surface of the product at the same rate it’s moving out from the center and you get a smooth/pebbly surface like spandex or very fine uniform wrinkles all around the product like Slim JIms used to be. Relative humidity 50%-65% will help this appearance. The deep wrinkles are uneven drying where the surface skins over in some areas (smooth parts or tops of ridges) and all the moisture is escaping from other areas that cave in (the valleys). If you use low relative humidity (0%-35%), you should get deeper wrinkles. Higher air speed will produce deeper wrinkles. And slow cooling in air from a high temperature will help the wrinkling. You could pull it hot and let it stand in air to 80-100F to enhance the wrinkle, then chill it as long as it is cured sausage and not 80-130F for more than 1.5 hrs or 40-80F for more than 5 hrs

To above mention of Chris Hansen, they offer freeze-dried starter culture besides frozen that may work for your circumstances.

Sticks dry fastest when moisture is leaving the surface of the product at the same rate it’s moving out from the center and you get a smooth/pebbly surface like spandex or very fine uniform wrinkles all around the product like Slim JIms used to be. Relative humidity 50%-65% will help this appearance. The deep wrinkles are uneven drying where the surface skins over in some areas (smooth parts or tops of ridges) and all the moisture is escaping from other areas that cave in (the valleys). If you use low relative humidity (0%-35%), you should get deeper wrinkles. Higher air speed will produce deeper wrinkles. And slow cooling in air from a high temperature will help the wrinkling. You could pull it hot and let it stand in air to 80-100F to enhance the wrinkle, then chill it as long as it is cured sausage and not 80-130F for more than 1.5 hrs or 40-80F for more than 5 hrs

You can try comparing seasonings by adding 1/4 teaspoon of seasoning to a 2 oz bathroom cup of warm (not hot) water, maybe 90-100F. Stir well and then taste a small amount of the tea from a spoon with lots of air across the tongue. Not exact, but will give you an idea of flavor, especially between two different seasonings. Pepperoni seasoning typically uses paprika for color with anise and fennel as the seasoning highlights. Historically it’s made from pork. If you want to try a recipe for 5 lbs of meat, 62g salt, 34g sugar, 22.7g ground mustard, 8.5g fennel seed, 4.3g ground fennel, 3.5g ground anise, 2.1g ground red pepper, 8.5g paprika. I don’t know the strength of Walton’s cure, so that would be used at whatever is recommended. Pepperoni is normally fermented, so add some encapsulated acid for tang. Commercial pepperoni is not cooked high enough to set the proteins, so there is a nutlike savoriness to rare meat that disappears when it’s fully cooked and flavor is more bland,. So a higher level of seasoning is needed to get full flavor in a fully cooked sausage. Pepperoni is dried to around 30-36% moisture. If you start with 72% pork, that is a weight loss around 35%. If you don’t take the weight loss, your yield will be higher and the seasoning flavor is diluted as a result. So if you have a higher yield you want to use more seasoning to get full flavor. You can make a nice full-flavored fully cooked pepperoni flavor refrigerated snack stick or brat, but would need a high enough seasoning level for full flavor.

I could tell you about shelf-stable ones, but they have a really strong punch. I think refrigerated is the way to go for better texture & flavor - you can use a milder vinegar pickle. A little smoke and seasoning like allspice will mellow the vinegar, too.

The CDC made no distinction between lunchmeats sliced & packaged under USDA jurisdiction in inspected meat plants and product unwrapped and sliced at your local meat counter. The overwhelming majority of Listeria cases from luncheon meats are from meats sliced at the individual deli counter which might be inspected by local or state health department occasionally and where your slicing and sanitation people are probably making minimum wage and may or may not be trained well for their jobs.

Heavier smoke may help mellow the extra tang.

Commercially, we used to soak fibrous casings 15-30 minutes before use in 100F water to make them more pliable before stuffing. We didn’t usually have any problems with clips tearing the casing that way unless there were burrs on the clipper anvil.

If you allow a salted blend to sit in the refrigerator, it will continue extracting protein through 72 hrs and get stiffer even without ore mechanical mixing. Even 6 hrs in the refrigerator you should be able to tell a difference.

Salt should be more than 1.8% of meat weight to extract the muscle protein & create bind. If the seasoning is very acidic, it can coagulate the protein so it won’t stick
together - adding baking soda at 1% of seasoning weight should reduce the acid level enough to prevent this. High temperature or a big temperature rise through a mechanical step like grinding or stuffing would smear the fat so the protein can’t encapsulate it - should be less than 38F in the casing. If you measure temperature before grind and after grind, goal would be a temperature rise less than 4F and same for before and after stuffing. If any of these fit your circumstances.

You are correct. Probably a poor choice of wording since bloom is associated with beef and raw fresh (uncured) sausage as you describe above. Cooked, cured products should be brought down to 90-110F to prevent surface shriveling from rapid moisture loss cooling from higher temperatures. But I do think the cured/smoke color is better in the package if you stop water cooling around 100F internal and allow the product to dry as it cools to room temperature vs. showering or drenching the product to a refrigerated temperature. That was the thought I had hoped to convey.