diff --git a/modules/elasticsearch/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/client/action/search/SearchRequestBuilder.java b/modules/elasticsearch/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/client/action/search/SearchRequestBuilder.java
index 39edf32c6ee..2623e5826f7 100644
--- a/modules/elasticsearch/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/client/action/search/SearchRequestBuilder.java
+++ b/modules/elasticsearch/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/client/action/search/SearchRequestBuilder.java
@@ -171,6 +171,14 @@ public class SearchRequestBuilder extends BaseRequestBuilder<SearchRequest, Sear
         return this;
     }
 
+    /**
+     * Constructs a new search source builder with a raw search query.
+     */
+    public SearchRequestBuilder setQuery(String query) {
+        sourceBuilder().query(query);
+        return this;
+    }
+
     /**
      * Constructs a new search source builder with a raw search query.
      */
diff --git a/modules/elasticsearch/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/search/builder/SearchSourceBuilder.java b/modules/elasticsearch/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/search/builder/SearchSourceBuilder.java
index 835172bec91..6b815c95124 100644
--- a/modules/elasticsearch/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/search/builder/SearchSourceBuilder.java
+++ b/modules/elasticsearch/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/search/builder/SearchSourceBuilder.java
@@ -19,6 +19,7 @@
 
 package org.elasticsearch.search.builder;
 
+import org.elasticsearch.common.Unicode;
 import org.elasticsearch.common.collect.Lists;
 import org.elasticsearch.common.io.FastByteArrayOutputStream;
 import org.elasticsearch.common.trove.TObjectFloatHashMap;
@@ -112,6 +113,14 @@ public class SearchSourceBuilder implements ToXContent {
         return this;
     }
 
+    /**
+     * Constructs a new search source builder with a raw search query.
+     */
+    public SearchSourceBuilder query(String queryString) {
+        this.queryBinary = Unicode.fromStringAsBytes(queryString);
+        return this;
+    }
+
     /**
      * From index to start the search from. Defaults to <tt>0</tt>.
      */