boy I really goofed this one up

So folks I have a little story to impart. I was moving along fine on my latest batch of beer (a winter warming ale) when I moved on to the boil phase. With my trusty turkey fryer roaring, I placed my 7 gallons of wort on the burner outside. However, in the process of the boil I FELL ASLEEP and was failed to be woken up. Anyhow, when I came to a few hours later my beer was still on burner and maintaining a temp of about 170 F. The volume has gone down to about 5 gallons and there is noticeable chunks of protein in the wort.

So the question is, can I put this batch on hold for half a day and try to just top her off, reboil and just continue to truck on from there, or should I just bite the bullet and buy new grains? I would appreciate your folk's thoughts and/or humorous stories of similar situations.

Is it an AG brew? What's your recipe? OG? Your beer will be darker and more concentrated, but not bad. The only thing that would be of concern to me is how the hop schedule went. Your brew is NOT lost! We need more info.

I didn't get to the hops schedule yet, so I was thinking of topping off the beer to 6 gallons again and starting the boil over and going ahead with the hops schedule. My smack pack has been activated and swelling for about 14 hours now (I bagged it in case it decided to explode during the day).

The beer did look pretty dark and there were proteins/sugars that had come out of solution. As of now the beer is sitting in my kettle and covered with some aluminum foil. I am planning on going ahead with the hops schedule and seeing how it looks prior to pitching. I am just curious if this beer has any hope of still being a good batch (especially when this was suppose to be my christmas batch).

Top off and proceed. It'll be fine. Maybe a little darker, and maybe some caramel flavor from the long boil. That isn't necessarily a bad thing!

+1 on proceed. A winter warmer isn't going to be hurt by extra boiling.

Well I topped off the batch and went through with the hops schedule. It's now about 24 hours later and a healthy krausen has formed. My final gravity reading was 1.054 so I was a bit off the target 1.069, but as long as the batch turns out drinkable I'll be pleased. Thanks for the encouraging advice.

After it turns out to be your best beer you'll be trying to replicate it again.

Good luck

Never thought about taking a nap during the boil, but now I know, and a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.