Does anyone know if it is ok to let the sticks rest a couple of days before thermal processing? I may have a 3 day window next week for meat processing & want to maximize my productivity. I am hoping to process at least 5 batches of sticks in that time. I was thinking about stuffing all of my sticks at one time & then putting them in my cooler. (without any cure accelerators of course). I would then smoke my batches one after the other, but could take up to 3 days. This would eliminate multiple grinder/mixer cleanups and I would be able to focus on smoking. I have found info on minimum resting times when only using cure #1, but not much info on max times before smoking.

In essences you are doing “Fresh Sausage Snack Sticks”.

I would think that smoking your sticks if you can achieve a finished IT of 165 (USDA requirement) within say 3 but not more than a 4 hour span then yes. But the cure is used to cook ground meats low and slow that would surpass the IT of 40 to 140 degrees within 4 hours.

This could be a little confusing since it on this site, but I digress.

“A lot of our recipes from Walton’s and Meatgistics call for a 12 hour holding period when making cured sausage.”

“So if you want to skip the 12 hour holding period when making cured meats between processing and cooking, simply use a cure accelerator, and get the added benefits of flavor stability and a potentially better shelf life.”

For an alternative opinion on sausage curing waiting period, here is an interesting article about sausage curing practices. Note that they make a distinction between curing time required for whole pieces of meat and ground meat.
I tend to agree that ground meat mixed with cure #1 and salt will fully cure much faster than whole pieces of meat simply because of the thorough mixing process between the curing ingredients and the ground meat particles, thus there is minimal time delays for ingredients to be absorbed or to penetrate.

https://www.meatsandsausages.com/sausage-making/curing/sausages