Why doesn't my beer have good head and lacing?

What do I need to do? Add maltodextrin?

maltodextrin adds body and mouthfeel, not head retention.

couple things good for a good head: belgian candi sugar, dextrin malts, some other grains help as well...

also, make sure you're not doing things to HURT your head retention, such as dishsoap or sanitizer left in the bottles.

What kind of grains help head retention?

Steep some Crystal 10L.

wheat malt for sure.

don't know all off the top of my head...let's see...

according to "Beer Captured": flaked wheat, flaked barley, torrified wheat, british crystal malt

also, click below...this is a search of john palmer's "how to brew" for head retention. if you read through the pages, you should find a lot of info on the do's and donts involving this particular area of brewing

http://www.realbeer.com/search/search.php?query=head+retention&db=howtobrew.com

I would look to your serving glasses as well. Wash them separately and rinse them thoroughly to get any soap or residue of something like jet dry off them.

The malts chart on the wiki lists which grains will help with head retention.

Here ya go, read this. A lot of information there for your problem.

The BYO article that Blender linked above is a very good read, the terminology and descriptions allow for the layman to get an understanding into Beer foam. Though the author does make a few physics mistakes they were not bad and therefore did not diminish the value of the report. I wonder in addition to viscosity does the surface tension play a role in the creation of foam. If i remember soap decreases surface tension of water, but it also allows bubbles to be easily made from said mixture.