Batch prime; what am i doing wrong?

So i've done 3 batch primes and all have failed horribly. my newest IPA, i put one bottle int he fridge after a little over 2 weeks, put it in the fridge for a few days, and took it out. it was carb'd pretty well but no head at all which has been my problem all along.

am i doing something wrong? am i supposed to boil the water and sugar together or does it make the differance if i boil the water only then mix in the priming sugar?

The way you prime your beer has little to do with head formation and retention.

Make sure you pour right down the center of the glass.
Make sure your glassware is free of detergents.

After you pour and the glass sits for a minute, are there still bubbles emerging from within the glass? If not, you haven't added enough sugar or you haven't let the yeasts ferment it. It should sit in bottles for two weeks minimum at 70*+ before you even worry about it. If you've done this look towards your recipe. My IPAs are usually dry hopped enough to have an uncontrollable head. In other styles it's a good idea to add some wheat malt or cara-pils/dextrine.

i just associated it because every batch prime i have no heads, and i dry hopped the crap out of this beer. i am going to look towards measuring by weight on my next batch instead of measuring by a cup as per advice from a friend.

My beers never carb consistently in two weeks. Four weeks is typical, and I usually bottle condition for six weeks before I start drinking them just to get a little better consistency of carbonation and the noticeable improvement in flavor that comes with a few more weeks of conditioning. The waiting is the hardest part, as Tom Petty said, but you'll be glad you did. Be sure to drink one beer at two weeks, one at three, another at four, five, and six, and record your tasting notes so you'll get an idea how beer changes over the first few weeks.

You should condition your beer at room temperature, by the way. The yeast will have a harder time doing their job of processing the priming sugar to produce CO2 in the bottle at refrigerator temperatures. It could dramatically lengthen the time it takes for your beer to carbonate if you try to let it condition in the fridge.

As cuinrearview said, be careful of soap, and surfactants in general. Your beer glasses should be as clear as possible of any soaps or surfactants. Don't wash your beer glasses in the dishwasher if you use Jet-Dry or a similar anti-spotting wash aid. It's basically a type of soap. I have almost 40 beer glasses, and I wash them in plain dish soap and hot water, rinse them really well, and let them air dry.

The type of beer you are brewing, the residual proteins, and the amount of isohomulones from high-alpha hops all affect head formation and retention too. It's not just a matter of carbonation.

Assuming you are brewing five gallon extract batches and not mashing, you could steep two or three ounces of carapils in a grain bag at 155°F to 160°F for 20 minutes in your brewing water, then remove it and continue your normal brewing process. Carapils is a very lightly kilned crystal malt that is added to beers to increase body and head retention. Too much, and you get cloudy beer, so don't over do it. It will add unfermentable sugars to your wort so your final gravity (FG) may go up a point or two and you may notice a bit more sweetness. That's another reason not to overdo it. But a little will improve head retention in your beers.

I did condition at room temp, but i figured out my problem, btw i make 2.5g batches due to no space for bigger bucket.

Using a beer calc, pushing in say 2.3 volumes of CO2 for an IPA @ 72 2.5 g batch it shows 2.0 ounces of dextrose. i used google conversions to change to cups, idiot me.

google showed 2.0 ounces = 1/4 cup. actual measured out, 2.0 ounces or 56.6grams was actually a bit over 1/3 cups.

so theres my answer, procedure is fine, math was whacked.